


Give Me Hope In The Silence

by deathmallow



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: 50th games, 65th Games, Ain't all it's cracked up to be, District Seven, District Twelve, F/M, Gen, Second Quarter Quell, UA, cross district relationship, mentoring, panem's sweethearts, star-crossed lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-24 16:55:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 74,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/942316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathmallow/pseuds/deathmallow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quarter Quells are known for their twists, and the Second Quarter Quell tops them all as it produces Haymitch Abernathy and Johanna Mason as unprecedented dual victors, and Panem's new sweethearts.  But the "star crossed lovers of the Second Quell" find that survival is only the beginning.  For victors of the Hunger Games, the real ordeal, and the real games, begin after the arena.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please note potential trigger/content warnings for: the Games, murder, violence, children killing children, prostitution and sexual slavery, sexual sadism, alcoholism/drug abuse, implications of a potentially forced pregnancy, and a consensual sexual relationship between two teenagers who may be underage depending where you live.
> 
> Most of these instances are non-explicit but I like to be overly cautious in my warnings if anything.
> 
> Thank you so much to sabaceanbabe for the beta and the encouragement, and to Red_B_Rackham who's made the fantastic fanart for this story which can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/941754)!
> 
> Title inspired by Mumford and Sons' "The Enemy"

For the fifth time since the sixty second countdown began, Haymitch glanced up at the neon readout in the sky over the Cornucopia. _37…36…_. Then he looked around him again, for the third time. Most everyone else was still staring around at the arena in wonderment like it was some kind of fantasy land. The girl on the pedestal next to him in Three’s bright yellow was holding her head up with her eyes closed and a delighted smile on her face, drinking in the air that smelled like the most beautiful summer day he could ever imagine, fresh flowers and fruit and newly-mown grass and the damp of water somewhere nearby, all carried on a soft breeze that caressed the senses.

It was too pretty. It smelled too good. For a few moments it had tricked and dazzled even Haymitch once his pedestal was pushed from his stockyard below, but then he’d realized it was Capitol and that meant something was rotten at the core. Shaking it off, seeing most of the other kids in the huge circle of forty-eight were still in a daze, he’d started to plan. _If,_ he told himself, shaking out his arms and legs and trying to keep them from stiffening with nerves, _if they’re gonna just stand there like a pack of dumb idiots, I can run for it. Forty-eight at the Cornucopia’s suicide. But if it’s just a few…_

He was one of the fastest runners in school. Wasn’t nearly big enough to excel at many other sports, but he knew how to run, and he knew how to fight people bigger than him. If he could get in there and get his hands on some kind of weapon and get away, that would mean everything. Because he knew the victors from Two and Four that had been forced into the mentor roles for Twelve this year—they rotated every single year, which spoke loud and clear about how much none of them wanted to get stuck with Twelve—weren’t going to help much. Both of them had given up all four of the Twelve tributes as hopeless. No, the middle-aged Four woman assigned to him wasn’t going to try too hard for him, at least not until she saw if he survived for a while, and maybe not even then because why wouldn’t she want a Four kid to go home instead? Her younger partner from Two, who’d won the 42nd, had no better reason to give a damn either.

To stand out among forty-seven others enough for sponsors, compared to the usual competition of being one of twenty-four, was no mean feat. The other male Twelve tribute, Dylan Wyatt, big and strong and nearly nineteen, had pulled an eight. Haymitch had a seven and he knew with a lower score and being a skinny, short, snarky sixteen-year-old, the sponsors would inevitably go for the tribute that looked almost like a grown man.

No, he was on his own for this. _22…21…_. He crouched into a runners’ stance, as much as he could on the small pedestal. If one hand or foot slipped off and touched the ground, he’d be sent home to his ma and Ash and Briar in bits probably collected in something the size of a shoebox. He tried to shake that unnerving thought off but it clung like heavy winter-thick maple syrup in the back of his mind. 

It would be a further distance to run to the Cornucopia than most Games, he realized. Forty-eight tributes meant the circle needed to be a lot bigger and further out than before. That would give him more opportunity to get in there and get the hell out before the more lumbering Careers made it. At least, that was the idea. 

_This is stupid, they’re gonna snap out of it, and I’m gonna run right into a pack of huge, pissed-off Careers with weapons._ A trickle of sweat ran down his back beneath the black, long-sleeved shirt that designated him a Twelve tribute, even though the weather was mild and gorgeous. Eyes darting aside again, he saw they were all still dead to the world. _Uh-huh, and they’re all gonna be dead to the world for real within about two minutes if they don’t wake up and smell the roses—ha! Looks like they’re busy doing that already, right? Oh, you’re real funny, Haymitch. Yeah, Caesar Flickerman and that audience just loved how funny you were, didn’t they? Maybe they’ll send you a cake if you don’t die in the first five minutes. Seriously? Cake? Just shut up and focus already._ Trying to shut down the nervous stream of thought in his head, he eyed the clock again, muscles tensing with the last few seconds. _5…4…3…2…1._

Mind made up, he pushed off from the platform as the clock expired and the starting gong sounded. Thankfully, his awkward position and frayed nerves didn’t throw off his balance and he landed with his feet squarely under him in the soft black-and-grey sneakers—color coordinated with the black shirt and grey tactical vest, how cute—and he ran like hell for the Cornucopia, not pausing to look back to see who else might be headed his way. Every second was going to count.

~~~~~~~~~~

Fearfully, Johanna eyed the clock. _42…41…_ and in less than a minute she might be dead, she shouldn’t be here but she was here. She was going to die. The pretty meadow and amazing smells hadn’t distracted her; her own thoughts did that more than neatly enough, as they had ever since the reaping. It felt like in the days since her reaping, when she was the second girl called, that she’d been thrashing around in dark water and choking and drowning like at the lake when she was just a little kid and Bern had to rescue her. She couldn’t keep her head above for more than a few moments of clarity and a gasp of air before the sheer terrifying weight of _This is the Games and there are forty-seven others trying to kill you and you’re gonna die you’re gonna die your family is gonna watch you die_ shoved her right back under again. She shouldn't be here. Only one girl should have been called just like every year, so she should have been safe.

In some ways she wished she could just totally lose it, go so nuts that she didn’t even realize what was happening. She knew. She just felt powerless to do anything about it, because she couldn’t even get control of herself. Stupid weak little Johanna Mason, crying there on the reaping stage, stammering her way through her interview with a terrified look on her face. The whole nation knew what a coward she was now. _Stop crying. You’re pathetic. You’re so pathetic and weak and you look so stupid right now._

She’d fallen out of a tree and broken her arm and carried on at logging camp in spite of it. She’d stood up to bears and wolves out in the woods. She’d gotten more bruises and cuts than she could count roughhousing with the boys. She’d always thought she was tough, acted like she was immortal. But she couldn’t get a grip on herself right now when it counted, when she apparently had found out just how weak and mortal she really was.

That morning she’d managed to get hold of herself enough to dress in her uniform—the dark green shirt for Seven, warm lined grey vest with all sorts of straps and pockets for holding things, dark trousers, green-and-grey shoes. Having managed that herself, angrily shoving away the creepy barely-human-looking preps who had tried to dress her like a helpless little doll, she’d thought just maybe she might be able to get that final push to get her head above the surface for good. She couldn’t climb out, but at least the fear wouldn’t choke her.

She’d realized how stupid that was the moment she’d popped up in the arena and struggled to not just fall to her knees and throw up right there. Standing there, trembling all over, it was the longest minute of her life.

_28…you’re gonna die…27…I can’t I can’t…26…forty-seven others in here…25…training score of two what a joke you are…24…embarrassed everyone in Seven by being such a coward…23…you’re gonna die…22…I saw the way Blight looked at me last night he feels sorry for me even he’s given up…21…I wanna go home…20…I mean I’ve never even been kissed…19….you’re gonna die…18…you’re gonna die…17….they’re going to kill you slowly…16….shut up quit sniveling…15….you’re gonna die…14…Heike’s gonna watch you die and maybe they’ll reap her next…13…will it be quick or are they gonna torture me….12…does it matter if they torture you because you’ve already looked as bad as you can…11…you’re gonna die…10…I wanna go home…9…forty-eight of us….8…you should run for the Cornucopia and make it quick…7…it’s gonna hurt…6….you’re gonna die…5…they’ll be laughing at you as they kill you…4….you’re gonna die….3…please I wanna live….2….please…1….PLEASE._

Gasping and choking like she really was drowning, feeling the darkness swallowing her up again, she stumbled off her platform and swayed, almost falling to her knees. Recovering her feet, she raced for the woods, miles distant. Because of all places, for a child of Seven, the woods would be safe.

She didn’t stop until she was well into the shade of the trees, turning her face up into the alternating shadow-and-sunlight filtering through the sheltering canopy of the leaves as she tried to catch her breath. Shinnying up a tall, beautifully perfect oak tree, far into the safe cover of its spreading branches, she waited, watching the ground below. Nobody came. When eighteen cannons rang out, she struggled to not retch. Thirsty and hungry and still fighting her own terror, she didn’t sleep at all that night, because the slightest sound had her startling awake. Four more cannons in the darkness told her that as opposed to most Games, the night was no longer a safe time. It was a Quell. Of course they would be trying to keep it interesting around the clock. Huddling there in the fork of the tree, shivering from both fear and cold, she kept watching into the darkness, waiting for them to come.

For as little as she’d managed to eat or drink the day before the Games, she still had to pee early the next morning. She didn’t want to end up sitting in it so she carefully climbed down to do the job, but she noticed her urine was already looking dark. That plus her cotton-dry mouth made her want to go find water, but her heart pounded with terror at the idea. Hearing a noise nearby, she climbed back up the tree in a hurry, scratching her palms up in the process. Finally after another full day up there without moving, her head pounding and with her swollen tongue feeling like a sawdust-covered board, she knew she was going to die of dehydration. _This is the only safe place,_ the dark monster in her mind told her, _if you leave here they’ll kill you._

But if she didn’t get water she’d die anyway, and the agony of dying by thirst made her think a knife to the throat would be better. “Either way I’m gonna die, right,” she muttered, feeling her dry and cracked lips splitting and tasting the hot salt and iron of her own blood as she gave what probably looked like a crazy smile. 

Climbing down the tree with her entire body locked tight and stiff from being folded into that position for so long was no easy task, and her muscles were clumsy and weak from lack of food and water besides. It didn’t help she was shaking with terror all over, from the voice in her mind whispering that she was doomed the minute she set foot on the dirt. Ten feet from the ground her fingers slipped and she gave an involuntary cry of alarm as she felt herself falling.

Instinct saved her—she’d fallen from trees before—and she twisted so she took the brunt of it on one hip rather than on her skull. But as she lay there with the wind knocked out of her, now in more pain than she already had been, she saw another pair of sneakers come into her view. These ones were red and grey. Not Six’s bright crimson, but a dark, almost rusty red—Two. Then there were more feet: another, smaller pair of red and one of blue-green and grey—Four. She let out a breathless laugh as the big red sneakers nudged her in the ribs, the boy saying lowly to his friends in a concerned voice, “We’d better do something here to make this one look interesting for the sponsors and keep them engaged. ‘Cause they won’t care about her getting knocked out of contention—this is the crybaby from Seven and she’s already half-dead anyway.” The monster had been right. She’d left that tree and now she was going to die.

~~~~~~~~~~

He’d gotten a backpack of good supplies, including a nice survival knife, from the Cornucopia. But after settling in a tree for the night, he’d watched a boy in Six scarlet sputtering and puking and choking his life away at the foot of the tree, aghast at the sight and the sounds of it. He’d had to think fast, though, and after the cannon he’d quickly shinnied down to grab the other kid’s meager supplies before the hovercraft arrived, seeing no wounds on him to indicate the Careers were in the area. The canteen on the ground, and drops of water shining on the too-green grass in the twilight—it came over him with almost explosive force. _Poison. The water’s poisoned._

He thanked sheer dumb luck that the water canteen in his own backpack had been full and he’d been in such a hurry that he hadn’t gone towards the one stream he’d seen in the distance that afternoon, because it was before the safe cover of the woods. He’d be dead right now if he had stopped for a water break there rather than taking a few small, well-rationed sips of the stale, plastic-tasting water in his canteen. That hadn’t killed him, so obviously it was the water sources in the arena. Glancing around him at the fruit hanging enticingly on the bushes, he shook his head, realizing it was probably _all_ poisoned. The sudden pang of panic at realizing his foraging and hunting skills had just been rendered absolutely useless, that sponsorships alone would decide who got safe water and food, almost brought him down. By the time he survived long enough for a sponsor, he’d probably be in rough shape from dehydration and weakness and wouldn’t keep their attention for long. The deck was totally stacked for the Careers already, with their stockpile of weapons and food and water and ample sponsor attention. As if they didn’t have the Games almost handed to them already every single year, the Gamemakers had to make it even more obvious now?

The crushing despair was replaced by a surge of anger—if they wanted him dead he wasn’t going to cheerfully comply—and he glanced up at the sky almost defiantly. “Try harder,” he muttered to himself. “I’m gonna be smarter than your stupid arena.”

He was careful the second day, not hiking too hard, trying to not end up exerting himself enough to need a lot of his strictly rationed food and water. At least they kept the weather pleasantly mild, though there was no guarantee they wouldn’t suddenly turn it up on a whim and start roasting them all or send in lightning or a blizzard or who knew what else. But still, he made a beeline towards the edge of the arena, and a thick tangle of hedges circled him right back towards the center of the woods just before he stopped again for the night, frustrated and feeling utterly trapped. 

Being attacked by a bunch of beautiful, riotously colored butterflies that apparently had venomous bites didn’t help. He spent most of the evening gingerly prodding and dubiously eyeing the ugly dark swellings on his hands and forearms. Rolling up his sleeves in the midday sun was a decision he regretted now because it had just given the little shits something more to bite. Finally he built a fire, careful to keep it small, and reached for the knife, sterilizing it in the flame. He lanced the wounds, trying to not throw up at the rancid smell of the discharge, carefully trying to get every bit of it out that he could. The butterflies were even more of a lesson to trust nothing in this arena because it was out to kill him, no matter how pretty it might seem. _Perfect for the Capitol,_ he thought with a smirk. The dark cynicism of it startled him but he didn’t seem much like a kid anymore. But then, he’d watched eighteen faces in the sky last night and six more tonight, and little twelve-year-old Heather Davies was one of them. He wasn’t sure, but it was likely she’d been in his brother Ash’s class.

In the afternoon of the third day he heard voices as he was skirting the edge of a clearing in the middle of the forest. Ducking behind a tree, his eyes widened as he spied a Two boy, a Two girl, and a Four girl standing there over someone lying in the dirt. He saw long dark hair and a dark green shirt. One of the Seven girls, and she wasn’t dead yet, because there had been no cannons for an hour. _She’s still alive,_ he thought, a sick feeling churning in his stomach. He didn’t want to watch this, but he wasn’t sure he could sneak out of here. 

_You’re gonna just let them do it?_ But then he asked himself, what could he do? Even the Four girl was bigger than him, and there were three of them, and all he had was a single knife. Besides, in this arena it had to be everyone looking out for their own survival. If he saved this girl now, chances were he’d have to kill her later or worry about her trying to kill him. If he jumped in there he was going to get killed for no point. She was in a bad way anyway, wasn’t she? 

_Still._ All his justifications, logical as they were, didn’t help. He watched, feeling sicker and sicker yet as the Careers debated in low voices and the girl on the ground gurgled out a choked laugh. Suddenly he felt a searing flash of pain in his left arm and looked down to see a fluffy, cute-looking golden squirrel there with its teeth fastened in his arm, which was still a bit painful from the butterflies. While he’d been distracted by the events in front of him, the bloodthirsty little bastard had crept up on him. Before he could think better of it and stifle himself, he’d let out a howl of pain and rage as he peeled the squirrel off of him by the scruff of its silky-furred neck, feeling the clenched teeth rip his flesh further as he flung it away. The Careers all turned towards him as one.

The dark-haired Four girl let out a laugh, which sounded weirdly relieved to him, like she was happy to see him. Great, she was overjoyed to have someone else to kill. “Looks like a two for one special. Not your lucky day, Twelve.”

 _Hell with it,_ he thought, in an instant realizing it was over. He couldn’t outrun them forever, because he hadn’t eaten enough or had much water for the last forty-eight hours, and the barrier of the hedges was still close enough for him to end up cornered. He didn’t give them time to prepare, just drew his knife with his still-steady right hand and charged in, leaping instinctively at Four girl, his attention drawn by her talking.

If he survived all of this, he thought he would never forget the choked grunt she gave as he slammed the knife into her, feeling the resistance as the broad blade scraped bone, stunned green eyes going wide. The moment seared itself into his consciousness and as he yanked the knife loose, he felt her blood spraying out over his fingers, sticky and hot and coppery-smelling and it was just like a deer’s blood, but this wasn’t the same thing, not at all, the deer never looked at him like that as it died with green eyes like that, with the terror and agony of knowing she was dying. Panicking for a moment, he barely ducked the Two boy’s strike, spying it out of the corner of his eye and acting more on instinct than anything.

Trying to keep hold of the knife in blood-slippery fingers, in a matter of seconds he’d managed to duck inside the massive boy’s guard, taking a wound to the arm for his trouble, and cut the boy’s throat, trying to tell himself _It’s just like a deer, isn’t it, don’t think, just do it, just do it_ and as he backed away, blood-soaked, he heard a scream from the remaining Two girl. It was a sound unlike anything he’d ever heard, as if he’d ripped the heart right out of her. She attacked him and with the sheer ferocity of it, and her greater size, knocked him off his feet and the knife flew from his fingers. Yanking his head back by his hair, he heard her panting and sobbing—was she crying?—as she tried to steady the knife at his throat, feeling the pressure and sting of the keen edge. Her own hand was shaking. He knew it would take only the barest stroke to kill him and he just waited for it.

Suddenly, there was another of those startled grunts like when he’d stabbed Four girl, and the knife fell away from his throat as he saw the shadow of the girl standing over him disappear. He heard her hit the ground. Scrambling away, turning to see what had happened, he saw Two girl on the ground with an axe planted squarely in her back. The blood showed almost black against the dark red of her uniform.

Seven girl was on her hands and knees, breathing like she’d run a hard mile, looking up at him with intense brown eyes. _Holy shit,_ he realized. She looked like she could barely stand and she’d thrown that axe perfectly, must have crawled over and picked it up from where the Four girl had dropped it when he killed her. She licked her lips, which he could see were dry and cracked and bleeding even where he sat, a good ten feet away from her, and told him, “You look like shit, Twelve.”

“You’re not sittin’ much prettier, Seven,” he retorted, stupidly feeling his pride stung. Recognizing insulting someone who’d just kept him from getting his throat cut wasn’t the best idea, he managed, “But thanks for saving my hide.”

“Well.” She gave a shuddering deep breath and pushed up to her feet, swaying alarmingly. “You saved mine too, here. If we get past being about three-quarters dead right now, looks like we might live longer together.”

He didn’t remember her from training, to be honest. There were so many kids they all blurred. But obviously she’d been wise enough to not get poisoned, and she’d taken the smart play of running away from the Cornucopia. Just her bad luck everything in the forest brought death—being from Seven she probably had depended on the woods to provide for her too. “You proved that neat enough,” he admitted, pushing up to his own feet, feeling the sting on his neck and knowing the Two girl had cut him there. He resolved to not look over at the bodies. “Allies?” he offered. It couldn’t last forever, but at least for now, having someone to team up with given that solo survival was impossible, seemed like a good idea.

“Yeah,” she confirmed.

Slowly, they started raiding the packs for what valuable supplies they might contain. He tried to not look at the dead kids, tried to shut them out of his mind, tried to pretend they’d just found those backpacks out here in the woods. She moved at a snail’s pace, but she kept going nonetheless. When a silver parachute suddenly floated down into the clearing, a parachute packed full of food and fresh water and bandages and antibiotic ointment, a total sponsorship dream, he knew that allying with her had been the right call.

~~~~~~~~~~

She couldn’t believe it—one minute she’d been there with the Careers ready to take her down and probably make her suffer in the bargain. Suddenly there was the boy they’d caught in the woods, and rather than coming along meekly he’d jumped in and attacked. She’d pushed herself up to her knees then, thinking to take that opportunity to try to run away, but her exhausted, dehydrated body just wouldn’t cooperate with her.

Johanna wasn’t quite sure how, but somehow the moment she saw that Twelve boy had killed two of them but the third had him and was about to kill him, that had broken through the barrier of her fear. _She’ll kill him and then she’ll probably torture you._

It had taken almost every ounce of effort in her heavy, trembling limbs to grab the hatchet the Four girl had dropped, sight on the broad back of the Two girl, and let it fly. The knowledge that if she failed she was going to die gave her a surge of adrenaline that seemed to steady her hand and give it strength. She heard the _thwock_ of the axe striking home and distantly, like it was something she’d seen on television rather than something she’d just done, she thought that it sounded nothing like tossing an axe into a tree. Wood made a sharp, solid sound. This was more like the ripe, squishy, hollow thud of pumpkins they threw axes at during competitions for the Harvest Festival—the pumpkins always got turned into stews and pies and the like. It was too much trouble to get them from Eleven for them to not be used fully. Staring at the girl face down on the grass now, the puddle of blood spreading around her, Johanna shuddered almost convulsively. That was no pumpkin. It was as much the shock of that as the inability to keep upright that made her drop back down to all fours, bracing herself up on her hands as well as her knees as she breathed deeply and tried to not pass out.

Twelve, scrabbling backwards on his ass, stared at her in shock. He was probably around her age, small and wiry, where most Seven boys tended towards strapping and broad. Black curly hair and startled light fog-grey eyes. She wondered if he’d kill her too and narrow down the field. She was in no more shape to resist him than a newborn puppy.

But instead he offered to ally with her, and hurriedly they tried to sort through the Careers’ packs before the hovercraft arrived, or any other tributes. The silver parachute with food and water and medical supplies made her close her eyes in gratitude, thinking, _Thank you_ , towards Blight and Cedrus. She didn’t know who was looking after Twelve boy here. They didn’t have any Twelve-born mentors, but obviously whoever it was, they were on point.

A lot of the Careers’ supplies were useless crap, studied and quickly thrown aside, but there was a bounty of food and clean water and medical supplies that they added to their growing cache. She glanced at the hatchet in Two girl’s back, knowing she ought to retrieve it along with its partner still near Four girl. 

“A blowtorch?” Twelve asked dubiously, studying it and turning it over in his hands. “What in hell were they thinkin’ people would do with this?”

“Make for some real fun deaths?” she muttered lowly to him, hoping the cameras wouldn’t hear.

He shot her a wry look but there was a snarky smirk on his lips that told her he appreciated the black humor. “I’ll bring it. Be nice for lighting fires in a hurry.” He lowered his own voice. “Or setting up a barrier fire in a rush if we’ve got to make a quick getaway.”

“I‘m Johanna,” she offered finally, throwing another packet of dried fruit leather onto the pile.

“Haymitch,” he answered, though his accent was thick enough she wasn’t quite sure she’d heard him right. “You able to walk?”

“Yeah.” She’d have to be, or else he’d probably leave her here. That was only fair. He couldn’t be expected to drag her sorry ass across this entire arena. Only one of them was going to make it out alive anyway. She reached for a bottle of water, clutching it in her shaking fingers, and undid the screw top. It was warm and a little stale but it tasted like heaven, and she found herself gulping it down. It hit her cramped, empty stomach and she fought the spasm of nausea, forcing it to stay down.

“Did you just drink _that whole thing_?” he said, looking up suddenly from sorting through more food, a dark, angry look crossing his features. “Hell!”

“There’s water in the meadow.” She’d been too busy running in terror, but she had the fleeting impression of a large, gorgeous pool with a stream and a small waterfall. “If we’re lucky we can maybe slip in and get so—“ 

“It’s poison,” he cut her off curtly. Something shifted in his expression and he didn’t quite look at her. “I saw one of the Six boys die after drinking it, first night in here. I figure _everything_ in here is poison. The only safe stuff is from the Cornucopia—‘least, I’m hoping so,” he nodded towards the Careers’ supplies, “or whatever sponsors send in.”

But at least they had a sponsor now, and one who’d been generous at the idea that the Twelve boy and the terrified Seven girl had teamed up and taken out three of the stronger contenders. “Then we’d better be careful with our rations from now on,” she told him softly, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and feeling guilty that she wanted to drink down another whole bottle of water. “I’m sorry,” she added, feeling a little stupid. “I didn’t know.”

He looked at her, really looked, and there was something almost like concern in his eyes now. “You had anything to eat or drink since the starting gong?”

“That was it,” she said, nodding to the empty water bottle. She wasn’t going to tell him that she’d been too mindless with fear to even think about that for the longest time. If he didn’t remember she was the sniveling, useless little Seven girl, that was all to the good. There was something to be said for a huge field like this—it rendered her more safely anonymous.

Three cannons rang out then. “Time to go before we have more company,” he said, shouldering his pack and getting to his feet, offering her a hand. “Here.” He handed her a packet of dried fruit. “Eat that while we’re on the move. I’d give you the jerky—“

“That’s just going to make me even thirstier,” she said, shaking her head. Already the water had helped a little. She still felt lightheaded and weak, but no longer on the verge of passing out. The black spots on the edge of her vision had receded a bit, and the determination to press on helped a hell of a lot too. If she was going to die, she was going to go down fighting now. The monster had retreated and though she could feel it faintly prowling around in the back of her mind, this time she controlled it rather than the other way around. Following his footsteps, they pressed on into the woods. Eventually she ended up taking point, with her sharper eyes for the forest. She had the feeling he’d been out in the woods a fair bit, but he hadn’t been raised to them like she had. To be honest, it was a relief to feel like she had something to contribute besides whatever gratitude he had that she’d saved his ass back there.

“Where are we heading anyway?” she asked him after telling him how to find west based on the moss patterns. She was slowly sipping another small water bottle, determined to make it last.

“Edge of the arena,” he said, tying his shoelace again, and resettling his pack.

“Why there?”

“Careers have the center, they _always_ do,” he said impatiently, as if explaining something patently obvious. When she thought about it, he was right—the Cornucopia and the ideal arena areas almost always belonged to Careers. “I headed for the edge, but there were some pretty thick hedges turning me back to the center. That’s where I found you. But I figure, we get through that—that blowtorch, maybe—might be there’s something we can use.” He shrugged swiftly, took another bite of the jerky. “If nothing else...it’s a good place to lay low a while?”

Let the field thin out a bit more, she understood, and maybe she’d recover a little more of her strength. Not a bad plan, all in all. “I’m game,” she answered, brushing a lock of hair back behind her ear from where it had come loose from her ponytail.

“You good for a while yet?” he asked.

“Stop babying me,” she snapped at him. “I’m still standing, dammit.” Stupid, stupid—he was thinking like this was outside still. She couldn’t look weak, not if they wanted sponsors to keep paying attention. She had plenty of weakness to make up for already, and he wasn’t helping her by treating her like some frail little old auntie he wanted to bundle up in a shawl and bring tea.

“Yeah, well, you drop in a faint, Johanna, I’m not carrying your sorry butt around all day long, so if you’re feeling sick, speak up,” he retorted, slapping a stick of jerky in her hand. 

“I’m fine, Haymitch,” she insisted through gritted teeth, taking a bite of the jerky and pushing off from the oak she’d leaned up against, heading again to the west. Chewing the jerky made her mouth water, and the richness of the meat, lean as it was, satisfied a craving in her that the fruit hadn’t. Her other hand she kept warily near the twin hatchets now fastened to her belt, ready for the first sign of trouble. “Make sure you can keep up, miner-boy,” she told him, looking back over her shoulder and giving him a confident, cocky smirk, pushing her trembling, rubbery legs ever onward. _See? Just fine._ She had some food and water in her now—with that and a good night’s sleep, she was sure she’d be all right. Well, as all right as anyone in this place could be.

~~~~~~~~~~

They didn’t bother with an evening fire. There was nothing to cook anyway, no meat that they could have killed. He had to admit her ability to scan the trees outstripped his own, and when she pointed up and said, “Up there for the night, I’d say,” the thick spreading cover of the leaves would leave them totally invisible from the ground. “Don’t know about you, but I don’t think either of us is up to standing watch tonight. So I wouldn’t be sleeping on the ground if I could help it.”

“I’ve been sleeping in the trees already,” he said, exasperated and a little annoyed, like she thought he was some kind of inbred idiot who didn’t even know to get the hell out of sight before giving in to the vulnerability of sleep. “Here.” He handed her his backpack. “Put that on you and grab on.” He gestured to his back. He knew she had to be in no shape yet to climb. Maybe after a decent meal and a good night of rest, but right now, she was stumbling along. The starvation and dehydration were showing.

The way she stood there reluctantly for a moment, looking embarrassed, told him that he’d hit her pride pretty hard. Not to mention, he realized with some chagrin, he probably made her look bad to the sponsors too, made her look weak. _There can be only one of you left alive in the end,_ he reminded himself once again. It wouldn’t pay to get too close to this girl. But at the same time, he wasn’t going to be callous enough to just hop merrily to that mindset, not yet.

She slipped his backpack on over her own, and as he stooped a bit, climbed onto his back, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. He’d given piggyback rides to Ash plenty of times, and remembered playing with Briar out in the woods, her jumping on his back, laughing playfully in his ear. She was built more solidly than Briar’s slimness or Ash’s skinny eleven-year-old body, so she was heavier than that, but he wasn’t going to embarrass her more by pointing it out. 

By the time he reached a safely hidden limb, his arms were trembling to the point he was worried about falling or dropping her, but he pushed on. Binding themselves to the tree with cord from his backpack, they sat and ate some of the dry rations from the sponsors’ bounty, though he noticed they carefully avoided the stuff that would just make them thirstier.

She pulled out a dark grey sack that had been in the sponsor parachute, undoing the cord and pulling out a thick, plush sleeping bag. “Wow, that’s nice,” she said with relief, reaching out to him on the next limb around the trunk so he could feel through the nylon lining that it was probably stuffed with down feathers or the like. “It’s been cold as hell up in these trees.”

“I know,” he answered, remembering huddling up the past nights, shivering, trying to stay warm.

She kept digging, and her eyebrows shot up abruptly. “Uh…they only sent one.” Her face was a study in embarrassment.

“You take it,” he said quickly. She needed it more tonight anyway.

“Don’t be stupid,” she snapped back, fingers clutching the dark material. “It’s big enough for us both. You’d really rather sit there and shiver? Afraid I’m going to try to jump you? _Here?_ ” She flung a hand out, indicating the arena and its ever-present cameras.

Flustered and a bit pissed off, he leaned in closer and hissed, “Shut up, OK, I’ve got a girlfriend.” He tried to think of Briar watching him sleeping in the same bag as another girl, and how she’d feel, and he was chagrined at how distant she seemed to him right now.

Johanna leaned closer and said, tone equally fierce, “Then she’s gonna be happy you didn’t freeze your sorry butt to death trying to be some kind of stupid gentleman to a tribute _from another district_ , isn’t she?”

When she put it that way, he could hardly argue. He looked at his hands, at the sticky dark lines of blood caked into the creases and around the nail beds. They couldn’t spare more than just a tiny splash of water for him to scrub the worst of it off. He’d tried to not think about eating with bloody hands. He’d tried to not think about the fact that now he was a killer, that he’d taken two lives with these same hands that afternoon. _Briar,_ he thought, _what do you think about that?_ Next to having killed two other kids, sleeping chastely with another girl for warmth seemed like a little sin. 

But as he settled into the sleeping bag next to Johanna, tying it in place on the branch, it rankled just the same, because it felt like he was being forced to give away another piece of himself to stay alive in here, and he knew the Capitol was probably enjoying this just as much as the deaths. He tried to keep as far away from her as the tree limb would allow and to give her that privacy, but it really wasn't much and they still were more or less pressed against each other. “Do you have anyone back home?” he ventured finally.

“What?” Her breath was warm and humid against his neck. Then she understood. “No,” she said flatly. Her tone didn’t invite any further questions on that. “No boyfriend.”

“Family?”

“Why do you care?”

“Well, it’s either that or we lay here and we each pretend the other doesn’t exist and we make this real awkward, don’t we,” he snapped, “so I figured a bit of talking might not go wrong.”

“You’re a real winner, Haymitch Abernathy.”

“You’re a real piece of work yourself, Johanna Mason.”

She huffed out a short, angry breath and said, “One older brother. Bern. He’s twenty-two. One younger sister, Heike, she’s fourteen. My mom and dad are both still alive. No grandparents left. You?”

“My daddy died when I was real young.” Good riddance. Haymitch was too young to remember, but by all accounts he’d been a worthless, violent drunk jackass. “My ma, she’s alive, and I’ve got one younger brother, Ash. Eleven.” He wasn’t going to get into the fact that everyone in the Seam knew Blair Abernathy hadn’t fathered Ash, unless his ma had somehow been pregnant for about two years.

“Shit. Not reaping age yet,” she murmured sympathetically.

“Yeah.” If he died in here, the terror started all over again next year for his ma, with Ash facing all seven years of reaping. “At least your brother’s out of it, and your sister will be soon.”

The faces played in the sky. In addition to the Two girl, Two boy, and Four girl they had killed, they’d heard another two cannons that day. Johanna let out a soft, distressed whimper to see the face of a dark-haired, dark-eyed Seven boy, just a little kid. “That’s Buck. His parents were on the same lumbering crew as mine.”

“Were you close?” Thoughtlessly, he reached out, hand mindlessly rubbing her arm in an attempt to soothe her just a little. It was nothing about sex at all, but when she froze like a startled animal, he realized what he’d done. He jerked away like he’d been burned, face suddenly on fire with embarrassment.

“No,” she said, voice a little unsteady suddenly, and he didn’t know if it was her district partner’s death or the touch. “No, we weren’t. He was only, what, twelve or thirteen…”

“Sorry,” he told her. Such a waste of a little kid’s life, he thought, looking up as they beamed the picture of an Eleven girl to finish it out. He thought about it and realized Dylan, and Maysilee the merchie girl, were still out there somewhere.

He finally fell asleep, lulled into it by his own exhaustion and strangely comforted by the warmth and nearness of another human presence. He wasn’t alone in here anymore.

~~~~~~~~~~

By the middle of the next day, eating small, carefully rationed meals and having more water, she felt almost strong again, and she knew it showed. She knew she’d better make it look good because the sponsors would be watching and she had so much to overcome now with those early days of looking so weak and pathetic. So she made sure she led the way, and that she tried to make him be the one to call a halt for rest.

He kept up pretty gamely, though, which was more than she’d have expected from Twelve. She’d always gotten the impression their tributes were skinny and weak and easily exhausted. He wasn’t big, especially not compared to the boys back home, but there was a lean strength to him, and a sense of constant energy and awareness that told her he wasn’t just going to lay on down and die easy.

The distant mountain exploded that afternoon, filling the sky with gritty ash, blocking out the perfect blue with fluffy white clouds and turning it the colors of fire—crimson, gold, orange. They climbed a tree to watch as the lava poured forth, glowing brightly, oozing down the mountainside, eerily beautiful for all its destructive power.

“How many?” she asked him, turning to look back over her shoulder at him, seeing him shading his eyes against the sun with one hand, a kerchief tied over his nose and mouth against inhaling the ash in the air, just as she had.

He looked back at her, grey eyes solemn and even grim. He shook his head. “Enough to make it a show, I’d guess,” he said.

Ten cannons soon provided the answer. Johanna wondered if there had even been anything in the way of bodies to retrieve from the lava, and a rough, almost convulsive shudder worked its way down her back at the thought.

When the nightly anthem played and they displayed the dead kids from that day, the butcher’s bill hit the Careers particularly hard: two from One, one from Two, one from Four. “That’s only, what, one girl from One, one boy from Two…and Four’s got one boy left also.”

“Career pack must have been chasing a bunch of people along the mountain.” She looked up again and let out a small cry of dismay.

Annike Douglas’ face shone among the stars. “You know her more than you did that boy from the other night?” he asked.

“My class at school,” she said unsteadily, “but we were together only in the winter. But…I knew her enough.” Still, it hurt. She realized she was the only Seven tribute left now, thought of the families that would be left mourning back in the winter town, pulled away from their crews to come and receive a coffin.

Twelve's symbol came along and they showed first a blond fair-skinned girl and then the heavy-boned, handsome face of an older boy who was as dark as Haymitch. “Maysilee Donner. Dylan Wyatt,” Haymitch said, smacking the bark of the tree with an open palm, a look of thinly veiled anger on his face. He looked over at her, determination and fatigue at war on his features. “Looks like you and me are it for Seven and Twelve.”

“Looks like,” she answered. As they settled down in the sleeping bag again, she wasn’t sure whether it would be worse to have Haymitch be the last opponent and have to kill him herself, or watch his face up there in the sky. But that was a question she didn’t have to answer that night.

For the next few days they made their way through the arena with care, rationing food and water carefully because there were no more sponsor gifts unless they did something more interesting than swap stories and endlessly hike around the arena. 

Johanna started to grow used to the ugly, sticky feeling of the blood caked on her hands and in her hair for lack of the chance to bathe. Finally they came upon an older Eight girl in company with a Nine boy and would have let them go on their way for now. But when the girl charged at them with a knife, green-gold eyes bright with determination—that decided it.

Back to back, fighting together as a team, they made short work of the other two. They had almost nothing on them worth keeping, although Johanna snagged the sewing kit from the Eight girl’s pack, seeing a huge bleeding cut on Haymitch’s forearm. Given how poisonous everything was in this arena, she wondered if the girl’s knife had something on the blade.

“I can’t sew,” he admitted that night, avoiding her eyes with more than a hint of embarrassment in his expression.

“You think ‘cause I’m a girl of _course_ I can?” She sighed. “Hold out your arm.” He bore it stoically, and she knew her stitches were a bit crude, even though she knew the needle passing through his flesh had to hurt like hell. She made sure to burn it in a flame before using it, just in case. 

The parachute dropped right beside their small fire after the anthem. Both of them pounced on it immediately, tearing into the provisions. “Candy,” she said with a gasp of surprise, holding up a packet of chocolate. She'd tasted chocolate only twice in her life before the Capitol, as an exciting New Year's treat. Something as little as that almost brought tears to her eyes, which was stupid, and she didn’t know why.

“Blueberry,” he sighed happily, picking up a packet of hard candy with half-closed eyes like he was in rapture. “I love blueberries, they’re my favorite.”

The most lifesaving thing was a dozen bottles of water, of course, but the sight of the treats was almost unbearably wonderful. A little giddy, they spoiled themselves with a few goodies before they packed it all up, doused the fire, and headed up into the safety of the trees.

Lying there warm in the sleeping bag with him, suddenly the sensation of contentment shattered and she felt a little sick, the chocolate sitting heavily on her stomach like she’d throw it up. Two more deaths today and look at all they’d suddenly gotten for it. Obviously the sponsors were well pleased with them. She hadn’t thought about it with the first parachute after the three Careers, desperate and unsettled as they’d both been, but it hit hard now. “We killed two kids and they sent us candy. And I was _grateful_ ,” she whispered into the hollow of his shoulder, shuddering.

“I know,” he said, and his voice wavered, cracked a little in a way that she doubted had anything at all to do with hormones. “I know. I was too.”

She lay there, certain that he shared her sensation of suddenly feeling shameful and disgusting in a way that would never wash out, even if they’d somehow sent them a shower with all the rest of it. So when she pressed closer to him, it wasn’t for warmth, but for the comfort of someone who understood what that sudden swell of terrified self-hatred was like.

~~~~~~~~~~

He felt cheap. They’d sent him and Johanna a few sweets and they’d acted like good, obedient little twits, so thankful, so happy.

So the next morning the two of them stopped fucking around with just wandering, and he pulled out the blowtorch from his backpack. “Let’s see what’s past that hedge.”

It took the greater part of the day. Two more cannons sounded in the distance. But between the blowtorch and some judicious blows of Johanna’s axes, knowing where to best strike to cleave the wood with minimum effort, finally they burned and hacked their way through the tight, torturous hedge.

All they found was a cliff, bleak grey stone giving way to the sudden drop-off. He peered down into the emptiness, couldn’t even see the bottom. For a wild moment he considered just stepping off, telling the Capitol they couldn’t kill him on their terms. But he thought of his ma, and Ash…and the guilty, gut-twisting thought of Briar. No, he couldn’t just give up.

“Well, hey, this was a fun hike,” Johanna said, hands on her knees, looking over the cliff herself. “Your idea didn’t work, Haymitch. There’s absolutely nothing here at all.” She brushed her hair back from her face. As she moved back from the edge, she kicked at a rock, sending it flying into the abyss.

He shrugged, sighing. “Guess there’s nothing for it, then.” The disappointment was acute, though. He’d been so convinced that somehow, he’d find something there. He was just turning when he saw a rock come flying back out of the canyon, heading right for Johanna’s knees. Wide-eyed, he dove for her and tackled her to the ground.

She fought back against him, a look of rage and betrayal on her face as she yelled, “So this is how it’s gonna go, huh?”

“Idiot!” he snapped, pushing back from her and holding his hands out so she could see he didn’t have his knife drawn. “That stupid rock you kicked was gonna take you right at the knees, OK?” He gestured to where it had landed, leaned down, picked it up, and flung it into the canyon. It flipped back to his hand a few seconds later as she watched. “It must be a forcefield around the arena.”

Her green-tinged brown eyes narrowed above those wide cheekbones. “Fine. Sorry. So now you’ve got a nice toy. And what do you intend to do with it?”

“Don’t know,” he had to admit, feeling the depressing weight of being let down as his elation at having figured it out faded fast. It was a nifty trick, but he really didn’t see anything he could do with it right at the moment. Maybe if he got an opponent out here he could make use of it, if he could duck their weapon fast enough, but what were the odds of that? Shouldering his pack again, he sighed in quiet frustration and said, “All right, let’s get out of here.” 

She gave him a quietly gruff, “Thanks,” as they passed back through the hedge barrier. It was only then he realized he probably could have just stood aside and let the rock injure her, maybe hurt her knee badly enough for him to take advantage and take out one more opponent that way. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind until that moment. _How the hell am I ever gonna kill her?_ he thought, shaking his head. That question would come up far too soon since it was down to them, the three Careers, and one Nine girl.

Then after the next day, it was just them and the Careers. Two kids from some of the most hopeless districts in Panem against three highly-trained Careers. Well, it had happened once before in that clearing and he and Johanna had been the ones to walk away. He just didn’t know if lightning striking twice was even possible.

~~~~~~~~~~

So it went—another full day of cautiously moving around the arena. They caught neither hide nor hair of the three Careers, didn’t even know if they’d come to the point where they’d split up or not, or if they were still roaming together.

The recap show the previous night must have been boring as anything. So Johanna knew that soon enough the Gamemakers would do something to liven it up. Release some new mutt, or somehow try to force a confrontation between their two alliances. She found herself wishing the others would get found by a mutt or turn on each other or something before that happened, and then felt nauseated with herself for thinking it. But the fact was that she wanted to live, and the flame of that in her chest burned ever hotter the further away she stepped from that panicked girl who couldn’t get a grip.

A high scream sounded through the woods, and immediately Haymitch had his knives in hand, having gained another weapon from the sponsors, and she clutched her hatchets, fingers curled tightly around their leather-wrapped hilts. She glanced at him, wondering what they should do. If it was a mutt or the Career pack finally breaking apart, did they really want to stumble right into the middle of it?

Still, standing there listening as she heard another cry that sounded half like a sob of terror, she felt that sickness in her stomach and her soul. If she stood by, if she let them do this to her and turn her into that kind of thing who just listened to somebody die, maybe she really didn’t deserve to live. Looking over at Haymitch, she saw the grim resolve on his face, and he nodded to her. He hadn’t just let her die, after all, so he must be thinking the same thing. “Let’s go.” With that he took off in the direction of the sounds.

Someone was down on the ground, and she couldn’t even see their shirt color because they were mostly buried beneath a pile of sandy blond fur. One of the mutts turned and looked at them, and the effect of the huge sweet yellow-green eyes and adorable long whiskers of the cat were suddenly spoiled as it _hissed_ , unfolding a set of blood-streaked dagger-like fangs, more like a snake’s than anything belonging to a cat. 

Haymitch silenced it with a knife thrown right into its guts. By the time they chased the pack of them off, they’d found out the things also had razor-sharp claws in those cute little paws, and they liked trying to climb clothing and go for the throat. Bloody, badly scratched and panting, they turned to see who’d had less luck with the mutts than them.

It was the Four boy. Only a few bits of his uniform showed the original blue-green. They’d completely shredded his vest, and she saw some blood-streaked grey that she thought might actually be his guts bulging out from a wound in his abdomen.

Dropping to her knees beside him in the grass, she didn’t even know if that particular shade of reddish hair was natural or if it was blood-streaked. He looked deathly pale beneath his naturally brown skin. He opened his eyes—eye—and looked at the two of them leaning over him.

“I’m beyond help,” he said matter-of-factly in an accent reminiscent of Haymitch’s thick twang, but more of a drawl, like the roll of a slow-moving river rather than a brook tripping quickly over stones. But the look of fright in his remaining green eye told Johanna how terrified he was in a way he was trying to hide from his words.

“Anything we can do?” Haymitch asked, eyes scanning over the older boy again, and his gaze met Johanna’s, troubled.

“No. Don’t waste your water or anything.” He gave a wheezing cough. “You’ll need it. Ain’t cause for you to be stupid this close to the end. Might as well take my pack too.”

“Your name?” Johanna asked him. It seemed important to her suddenly. She didn’t know the names of the other three Careers, the ones back in the clearing, including one of this boy’s district partners. She would find those out, if she lived. But right now this wasn’t a Career trying to kill her, spoiled and raised rich and specially trained and Capitol-favored. This was just a boy in pain, scared as he was dying.

“Bream Shaunessay. If either of you make it…on your Victory Tour…” 

“We’ll talk to your kin, tell ‘em you love ‘em,” Haymitch promised him, gently putting a hand on Bream’s shoulder. “I swear.”

“Thanks.” After having mustered that much effort, Bream now lay back with the limp exhaustion of clearly having no more energy left. But Johanna saw that his chest still lightly rose and fell, the air gurgling through the blood. She didn’t know how long it would take him to die, but it wouldn’t be nearly fast enough. Maybe they should have left and cleared out once it was obvious there was no hope, rather than risk One girl and Two boy finding them there, but she knew she couldn’t leave this boy to die alone, especially when his eyes were still open and it was clear he was conscious and feeling these last moments of pain and the knowledge of his own death. 

She heard the rasp of steel and saw Haymitch had drawn his knife, looking down at Bream with a look of pity on his face. She immediately understood what he was thinking. End it and give a dying boy a bit of mercy. But he stood there, caught in indecision for a moment, because to kill in self-defense was bad enough, but to deliberately take the life of someone unarmed and defenseless, even as a mercy, was another thing entirely. It felt like one more terrifying step on a path where taking a life became too easy and thoughtless. She thought perhaps he was afraid of turning into more of a killer than he already was, and she found she couldn’t make him take on that burden alone. 

So she stepped forward and touched the back of his hand lightly, feeling the tension in his clenched fingers around the hilt of the knife. “Together,” she suggested softly.

He looked up at her. For just a second there was a flicker of unspeakable gratitude in his eyes. “Together,” he agreed.

It took only one carefully placed thrust of the knife, right in Bream’s heart, both of them clutching the hilt tightly. Another death marked now as Bream finally went still and the cannon sounded, and she thought now more than ever that she’d never forget the sight of fresh blood against green grass. She reached up and closed Bream’s eyes with a shaking hand, but she reached for his pack all the same. After all, he’d said to take it. 

As the hovercraft left, she saw that Haymitch touched the middle three fingers of his hand to his lips.

“What’s that?” she asked him.

He looked at her, that look of furtive embarrassment coming over his features again. “We do that at funerals,” he said, jamming his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunching forward. “It’s…just a goodbye. He died brave, you’ve gotta give him that.”

“Don’t have to explain to me,” she told him quietly. It may have been done in the name of decency and mercy, but to deliberately take the life of someone unarmed and defenseless still felt a little bit like one more uncomfortable step on the road to darkness. She didn't know exactly what she was becoming in this place, but it scared her.

So after hurrying away, knowing they’d probably stayed too long already, they didn’t stop for a few hours before they silently divvied up the contents of Bream’s pack. Haymitch added the machete to his supplies. Then it was back on the move again, with no destination known at all. 

As they stopped that afternoon to gnaw on some dried fruit and jerky, a sponsor gift drifted down. Cookies, still warm and spread thick with pastel frosting, shaped like a fish. “I don’t know if this is some kind of thanks for being decent,” Haymitch said lowly, huddled close to her and staring at them with his brows furrowed like they’d sent rat poison instead, “or the Capitol’s idea of a cute gesture.”

“I don’t know,” she said wearily, not understanding him and too weary to care just then. “Just eat ‘em.” They might not be starving, but she’d felt the flesh melting off her bones, and knew what padding she’d had was probably gone by this point. Neither of them had the luxury of refusing that kind of bounty of calories, even if the intended message behind them might or might not be fucked up. 

“One of the two Twelve mentors for this year, my mentor, she’s from Four,” he blurted suddenly, looking up at her in astonishment. “I…what was her name...Maeda. The other’s from Two, Scipio, he won a few years back. They’re on loan from their districts, guess they got roped into it, since we’ve got no living victors back in Twelve. But I figured neither of them was gonna do a damn thing for me or any other Twelve tribute. They didn’t seem to have much to say beforehand, you know? I kind of figured they resented us. But some of the stuff’s come from them already, hasn’t it…can’t have all come from _your_ mentors…”

“So let’s assume Maeda and maybe Scipio and Blight and Cedrus decided to give us a pat on the back, and eat your damn cookies already.”

At that point, she just about dropped her fish cookie in the grass as the announcement system boomed to life with a flourishing brassy fanfare of trumpets. The somewhat unctuous voice of Claudius Templesmith piped up loud enough to be heard across the entire arena. “Hello to our final four! This is indeed a very special occasion for a very special Games, because our beloved President Snow has asked to address you directly!”

 _This never happens_ , she thought in something like a panic. Snow never said anything during the Games, not even on television, and certainly he didn’t directly address the tributes. That was always left to Claudius, or sometimes Caesar Flickerman. After greeting the tributes at the end of the Tribute Parade every year, Snow always stayed aloof and apart from the rest of the Games until the time came to crown a victor. She didn’t know what this meant, but she wasn’t sure it could be good, because this meant something big, something momentous, and at this stage of things there was enough uncertainty and fear without springing some kind of surprise on them. 

Suddenly there came the sound of the grave, dignified voice of President Coriolanus Snow. “Tributes of the 50th Hunger Games! You’ve covered yourselves with glory, demonstrating your bravery, your skill, and your intelligence to the eyes of a grateful nation. You’ve done great credit to your districts.” If this was home she’d be snorting derisively inside her head, and probably verbally later to her friends, but as was, she felt like she was a mouse paralyzed before a hawk, unable to do anything but listen to someone she knew full well held her life at his whim. What was he planning? “In these very special Games, the monumental occasion of a Quarter Quell, we are reminded most deeply of the Dark Days. But the Capitol is also compassionate. And I’ve decided that in the spirit of moving beyond our painful past, given that twice as many tributes were reaped for these Games, there can be two victors this year to help balance the scales in the interest of merciful justice. Good luck to our final four. May the odds be ever in your favor.”

She stared into the distance for a minute, taking it all in. Then, taking just a moment to jam the rest of her cookie in her mouth so it wasn’t wasted, she lunged for Haymitch, wrapping her arms around his neck, wanting to laugh and cry all at once. Swallowing it, giving a quick hiccup that might have been half a sob, she whispered, “We can both get through this, we can both survive, don’t you see?”

He hugged her fiercely in return, and she was surprised to really feel the remarkable strength in that wiry body. It was only later that he asked dubiously, muttering half to himself as he walked alongside her, “But what’s the catch?”

~~~~~~~~~~

Haymitch wanted to believe it really was that easy. But something in his mind kept telling him there was some kind of hidden snare or price to be paid for it, something he didn’t see just yet. Though when he tried to explain that to Johanna, voice pitched too low for the cameras, she just shook her head and said, “Focus, all right?”

Then she glanced around them nervously and said, with her voice still barely above a whisper, “Look, we’d better cut it out with the hush-hush stuff or they’re going to really wonder what we’re talking about here.”

She was right on that. Whenever tributes talked too low for the cameras, Caesar and Claudius _always_ speculated. He supposed maybe they could get better microphones that could pick up anything, even a whisper, but in some ways he thought the Capitol people thought a little mystery was even more delightful. “Nothing fun here, we’re just talking about our favorite kinds of food,” he drawled loudly, looking around him with a bit of a smirk.

“Shh,” Johanna said, giving a bit of a nervous snicker, elbowing him in the ribs lightly even as she laughed. “Shh, c’mon. Quit it with the whispering. People are gonna say we’re in love or something.” 

That sobered him like a slap in the face. Thinking of Briar, trying to draw that ever-more distant picture of her back to him and cling to it fiercely, his snarky attempts at humor dried up instantly. “OK,” he said, grimly determined to get down to business.

As he turned, the look on her face tugged at him but he didn’t want to sit and think about it too long. There were two other tributes out there and sooner or later they’d have to confront them. The Gamemakers would assure it. It was better to try and make that stand happen on their terms, he thought.

Hurried footsteps caught up to him, and her face was hard, focused. She asked, “Where do we want to try to make this happen?” 

“Get them away from the meadow. That’s their turf, they’ve been there so long.” Confronting two bigger, stronger tributes right out in the open, near their weapons stock, wasn’t the best idea. “You and me, we’re better here in the forest. We stay in here.”

Somehow he wasn’t surprised when they saw a flash of One gold through the trees a few hours later, and then Two red. Whether it was chance or Gamemaker assistance, this was the end. Just for a moment he reached for her hand, gripping her fingers tightly in his. “I hope at least one of us makes it back,” she said.

“Either of us doesn’t, we do it for each other on the Victory Tour like we promised Bream?” She nodded. It was cold comfort to imagine this Seven girl trying to console his ma and Ash, but at least she would be someone who’d cared and been with him until the end.

Then he let go of her hand and went for his knife instead, knowing the two Careers had spotted them and were coming on fast. They still stumbled through the woods some, he noticed, compared to the swift sure footing he and Johanna enjoyed. He intended to use that. 

The One girl had a wicked-looking axe and the Two boy a large sword. “Oh _fuck me_ ,” he muttered, finally recognizing them. Of the field of forty-eight, these two had gotten a good bit of attention from the Capitol. “It’s the legacies.” Each had a victor as a parent. Every single time a legacy entered the arena the Capitol went nuts. Having two in it this year just made the whole Quell all the more special, didn’t it? Somehow he shouldn’t have been surprised that these two were the last ones standing, but it took him aback just the same. There had never been a legacy victor. So maybe they had even more to prove.

“We ought to use the trees,” Johanna said, her voice suddenly a bit unsteady.

Compared to how he’d just said to hell with it before and launched himself at the three Careers, this time he tried to play it smarter, use the surroundings. So instead he backed away and Two boy came after him, charging with all the size and massively muscled strength of one of Ten’s bulls that the Capitol sometimes showed on television for a bullfighting spectacle. Apparently killing kids once a year was enough and animals sated them the rest of the time.

It became a running fight. Two was as fast as he was, but Haymitch used his smaller size and sheer agility to weave his way between the trees, doubling back on his own trail and leaving the other boy crashing after him, cursing. Two was in splendid condition, no doubt, and he wasn’t going to get tired quickly, but taking opportunities to slash at an arm, a leg, or the like from the protection of a solid tree trunk or inside his guard or before the other boy could turn around, it would mount up as a toll of blood loss and injury.

Nasty way to fight, more like the pesky jabs of a mosquito, but at this point it was smart. Keeping the fight in tight quarters with obstacles and constantly moving, taking away Two’s ability to just plant his feet and swing that sword in a head-lopping arc— that was the way to win this. He knew it with all his instincts.

It was working too. “Stand _still_ , you little fucker,” Two grunted in frustration, having swung his sword and stuck it into a tree trunk. 

Haymitch started to get a little too confident. Because when he closed in again, he found out he’d forgotten in his giddy adrenaline rush of _I’m gonna go home I’m gonna live_ that Two kids trained for years to be far more than just dumb sword-swinging brutes. He barely felt the slash at first and then it was just a bright, hot sensation in his guts, but the pain followed a moment later, and he saw Two had abandoned the sword for a knife himself.

Trying to keep it together, one hand sliding down to press the wound and stop the bleeding—and _fuck_ was that greasy, ropy sensation actually his guts poking out, just like Bream—he realized he couldn’t run and hide anymore. Two closed in, something like relief on his pale, strained face.

Down to one knife, he waited, nerves frayed almost beyond bearing with pain and fear and the instincts within him shrieking that the other boy was getting too close and he was going to die. His other hand pressed to his stomach, trying to make sure those guts stayed in. Just one more moment, before Two was too close to dodge. 

His hand was surprisingly steady and strong with all his might focused on this last-ditch effort as he threw the knife right into the throat of the Two boy. The look on his face as he fell and the gurgles and rattles of a kid choking on his own blood barely a foot away were going to stay with Haymitch forever, assuming he didn’t die of shock before Johanna’s own fight finished—whatever way it finished.

~~~~~~~~~~

One girl was big and blond and fast and exquisitely graceful, and the strange-looking axes in her hands looked like they belonged there just as much as Johanna’s weapons did.

Round and round they went, weapons clashing and catching each other’s blades. Johanna got a lucky chop in, a split-second quicker, and felt the resistance of steel cutting through bone, too much like chopping through tough green twigs. Suddenly that was it for three of One’s fingers from her right hand, and she couldn’t hold that axe any longer.

Johanna paid for it, though, when One pushed through the pain and caught her a little struck dumb by the sight of axe and fingers both lying there in the grass. At the last moment she dodged just enough that the blow didn’t catch her right in the neck. Instead it sliced levelly into the joint of her left shoulder, and she gasped aloud at the pain and heard the snap of bone as her arm went dead.

Just then, a cannon boomed, echoing through the arena and she heard the squawking as it upset some of the birds nearby. Whether it was panic and potential grief for Haymitch, fear that the Two boy would come for her now if he was the one left standing, realization that her arm was useless and she was done for if the fight lasted, or just the sheer aggravated rage of an animal in pain lashing out at an attacker, she struck back with an answering blow, and another, and another, one last spike of adrenaline fueling her.

She stopped only when she heard the cannon and realized the other girl’s head was hanging by a thin strip of flesh. _Oh fuck, I did that,_ she thought with revulsion and horror. Dropping the axe, she stifled a retch. She glanced down. Her arm was still there, she’d been half-afraid it was actually lopped off, but the bleeding was steady, pulsing out with every beat of her heart. Clapping a hand over the wound, biting back a groan of pain, she tried to put some pressure on it.

Her gaze was blurring a little already as she saw a figure coming towards her, steps unsteady and painful. Black, not red, and she let out a soft sob of relief at that. He caught up to her and she looked at him, the pain glazing his grey eyes, and he told her roughly, “C’mon, we did it. All we’ve gotta do is stay alive.” Clinging to each other to stay upright, staying alive sounded like the hardest thing in the world. She didn’t much remember what either of them said to each other right then, but keeping talking and focused rather than slipping into the greyness starting to appear around the edges of her vision seemed to help.

Even more than Claudius’ announcement of them as the two victors of the 50th Hunger Games, the hum of the hovercraft as it lowered down over them sounded like the sweetest thing she’d ever heard in her life.


	2. Chapter 2

He could hear the sound of Caesar Flickerman’s voice and the fanfare music even here below the stage. A few stray dust motes drifted down from the ceiling in the spotlight. Haymitch couldn’t tell what the man was saying, but from the noise he knew the show was starting. Standing there on the spot the production assistants had indicated, staring up at the ceiling to where he’d pop up on stage, he tried to not think about the echoes of the ride up from the stockyard and being thrust up into the arena. His fingers instinctively searched by his side, finding no knife there, just the dark fabric of his vest and trousers. At least they’d apparently had someone else dress him for this occasion—Twelve’s stylist had dressed him in neon-colored, baggy clothes for the interview, and the less said about the embarrassing chariot ride costumes, the better.

In that moment he realized all over again that the other three kids who’d been in those horrible costumes with him were going home in coffins: Heather, Dylan, Maysilee. Closing his eyes for a moment he breathed in roughly, trying to quell a sudden pang of nausea. The doctors had warned his stomach might be touchy for a while given the repairs on his guts, but he knew this had nothing to do with any physical ailment.

“Kid,” there came a sharp voice to his left, and he opened his eyes and turned instinctively towards it, hand reaching again for that not-there knife. Blight Arnesson lumbered towards him. As he approached, Haymitch felt a little ridiculous in noticing that he barely came up to the big Seven victor’s chin, and the man was built burly enough to probably snap him in half like a twig. No wonder he’d made short work of other tributes in his fights during the 44th Games. He’d wielded a full axe, not a hatchet, like it was just a toy. “Sounds like Maeda’s at the doctor’s. She’s too sick to make it.”

Haymitch shrugged. “All right,” he said diffidently. She was supposed to be here, right? The victorious mentor always came up on stage for the initial bow and applause and then took a seat in the front row—that was why Blight was here, because he had the Seven girl tribute. But once again Maeda was nowhere to be found. Not like that circumstance was new. She’d been pretty useless, to his way of thinking, and he wondered if that glazed look in her eyes was some kind of drug. He started to wonder all over again just which mentors had dealt with sponsorship gifts.

Blight gave a low grumble in his throat, shaking his head. “Should have figured when she left the majority of it to Scipio,” he muttered, more to himself than Haymitch. “Well, if she’s not going to come do her job as a mentor,” and the way Blight said it, that sounded like a worse crime than most anything the man could think up, “take some advice from me.” He peered at Haymitch and something in his face changed, as if really seeing him for the first time. “ _Haymitch_ ,” he said instead, and Haymitch thought his voice sounded odd in that round lilting Seven accent. Blight leaned in, hazel eyes intent, voice lowering to barely above a hushed whisper. “Be funny if you can. You got away with it in the interview because you made the other tributes the butt of the joke and they liked that. Don’t get cocky and make fun of the Games or the audience. You act surprised to be alive, and you’re going to be so unspeakably grateful to President Snow for his generosity in letting two tributes live this year. Got it?”

“Got it,” Haymitch answered, not quite getting it, but from the intensity of Blight’s gaze and voice, knowing it was important. He couldn’t help but feel this man had been more useful to him in thirty seconds than Maeda had the entire time. No clue why she just didn’t bother, but he recognized Blight didn’t owe him even as much as the proverbial gooseshit on his shoes, and yet he’d done this anyway. “Thank you…sir.” It felt weird calling a man only seven years older than him “sir”, but he felt like being respectful helped.

When Johanna arrived, Haymitch looked at her, golden skin glowing with whatever Capitol treatment they’d used, dressed in a pretty dress in subtle swirls of various shades of green cut just a little bit daringly low over her ample chest, her brown hair tumbling down around her shoulders in loose waves. Green dress on her, and he wore a black vest and trousers over a pale grey shirt. Even now they were dressed in their arena colors. Did they want to play that up to the audience, the monumental sight of victors from two different districts, forever united as allies in victory? Instinctively he reached down, his hand seeking hers. Her fingers wrapped around his, and he felt like he could breathe again. She looked healthy and young and beautiful but her eyes, when they found his, were old as sin. 

“Good luck,” Blight rumbled, stepping back and gesturing them over to the pad where they’d be lifted to the stage. So no mentor here for Haymitch himself—well, fine. Maeda had made it obvious she was only there because she had to be and she didn’t want any part of it. So at this point, Maeda Torres could pretty much go fuck herself with a pickaxe so far as he was concerned.

Still gripping Johanna’s hand, he felt it as the platform started its slow ascent to the stage.

~~~~~~~~~~

They roared at the sight of her and Haymitch, screaming their names and cheering and applauding. With the noise and so many faces, it was all overwhelming to the point where she wanted to just hide in the corner with her hands over her ears and her eyes shut tight. She felt that crushing darkness at the edge of her mind, the same one that had smashed down over her the day of the reaping. All Blight’s advice suddenly flew out of her head.

It was the sudden twitch of Haymitch’s fingers in hers that called her back and reminded her that he was afraid as well, and she wasn’t alone. Trying to take in a deep breath and push back against the darkness, she squeezed his hand in return.

Caesar’s wig was as bloody red as it had been during the interviews, and she wanted to look away from it. But now she remembered— _stay strong, stand tall, act humble, don’t let them see your disgust or fear._ As he gestured the two of them to a plush blue velvet couch beside him, rather than the usual single chair, Caesar leaned in and said coyly, “My, you two looked like you were hanging onto each other for dear life!”

Haymitch grinned and said, “Well, I know y’all had to fix the lift there to deal with two people rather than one, and I was really just hoping we’d fit through the hatch and it wouldn’t break.” The laughter for that was bright and whole-hearted, from people who could find two survivors left of forty-eight kids somehow amusing.

Feeling like she’d passed a hurdle with her mind now mostly clear, Johanna decided to give them what Blight assured her they wanted. She scoffed, “Are you calling me fat, Haymitch?” Her reward for that was some laughs and some anticipatory sounds of _Oh now he’s in for it_ from the audience.

Haymitch’s eyes went wide and he lifted his hands as if to defend himself. “Wouldn’t dream of that, Johanna, not for a moment.” He leaned over and asked Caesar in an overly loud whisper, “Did anyone search her for weapons before this?”

Caesar’s laughter mingled with the crowd, and he sat back in his chair, crossing his legs and grinning at the two of them as he said, “Well, it was clear from the very first time you met that you two enjoy a good bit of banter! I don’t think I’m the only one who saw a potential spark…?” More enthusiastic cheers greeted that. “Tell me, are you two perhaps a little more than allies?”

“Oh, no, no,” she said, mindful of Haymitch’s girlfriend, the one he’d obviously agonized over during those shared nights in that sleeping bag. “We’re not in love.” She almost launched into a nervous explanation of how pointless it would be for two people from different districts anyway, but she stopped herself, knowing that wasn’t what they wanted. “But I mean…no, OK, we’re not just allies. I’d like to think, Haymitch and me, we’ll always be good friends now, even if we have to sort of be friendly rivals as mentors.” The audience loved that from their coos and murmurs of approval. Haymitch smiled and reached over to take her hand again at that. 

They watched the tape of the Games, and she was glad they kept holding hands. She wasn’t sure she could have viewed it alone. They had edited the tape to show two sides of a pair of teenagers: one side of a growing bond, full of humor and awkwardness and loyalty. The other side was purely cunning, vicious, and deadly. “Oh, my, Johanna,” Caesar said, watching the fury with which Johanna went after the One girl for the decapitation. “You’re certainly feisty in this final fight.”

Her lips and tongue didn’t want to work for a moment. _Was that really me?_ Finally she managed to say, “The cannon…I was worried it was Haymitch. And…and…” It even seemed like the truth, even if not the whole truth.

“And Haymitch—why, look at the sheer cleverness this young man used against one of Two’s finest! What nerve! What timing!” The applause was almost deafening. Haymitch looked over at her and though he’d pasted on a cheerful and even cocky smile, she saw the momentary flash of misery in his eyes.

The Capitol utterly loved them, and that more than anything made her feel like a monster.

~~~~~~~~~~

On television, Coriolanus Snow looked like the ideal of somebody’s kindly middle-aged uncle, all genial smiles with that broad mouth, and possessing a bushy beard in the same butterscotch-streaked gold as his hair, which was barely touched now with a few threads of silver at the temples. But unlike most Capitol people, the President didn’t dye his hair. “Ageing with such graceful dignity”, the Capitol announcers said about him with admiration, like Snow had done something truly remarkable, like he’d cured disease or found a way to stop poverty.

Up close, in the summer sunlight on the balcony on the front side of the Presidential Mansion, those blue eyes didn’t match the rest. They had the crinkles of smile lines around them that apparently Snow had refused to have smoothed out, but that didn’t change a thing about their essential nature. Those eyes, Haymitch saw, they were cold and almost reptilian. Snake’s eyes, assessing what was in front of Snow as his prey and how he could best seize and devour it and make it his. There was also the oddity of the scent of blood, as if Snow had cut himself just before the ceremony, but there were no bandages on his fingers or a shaving nick on his jaw. The thick, cloying smell of the white rose on his lapel almost covered it up, and maybe most people wouldn’t have even noticed. But Haymitch knew he would be able to easily pick up the scent of blood for the rest of his life. It would be impossible to forget. 

“It’s so good to see you both in such splendid health again, and so quickly too,” Snow said, bright smile and snake eyes both well in place, looking at him and at Johanna, the two of them standing side by side. Hearing the noise from below from the audience gathered out from of the mansion to watch Snow crown them as victors, Haymitch glanced out over the sea of eager faces cheering his name and Johanna’s like they’d done something remarkable, and that didn’t help either. Smelling the blood again—was it on the man’s _breath_ or what?—he resisted the fierce urge to look down at his hands to make sure no old, dried blood remained in the nails and creases. Looking back at Snow, he just tried to think about anything else but that ruthless gaze coupled with that artless smile. 

They hadn’t let Johanna wear heels like her stylist had apparently wanted, because given he was only two or three inches taller than her, that would put her almost on a height with him. They’d clucked about that at the hospital, the poor short underfed Twelve boy. They’d smiled as they reassured him that they’d taken care of the problem while he was knocked out, and the injection they’d given him would do its _very best_ over the next six months to try to correct the unfortunate deprivations of his upbringing. He tried to remember if he’d seen a male victor less than six feet tall. Not many of them, so he had almost a half foot to try to make up.

As if reading Haymitch’s mind, Snow asked genially, “The medical staff took good care of you both, I trust?”

He forced his mouth into a grin. “Oh, they fussed over me a lot, sir. And of course Johanna was right there—they tell me they moved her in only a few hours after we both got out of surgery.” He remembered that he’d woken up once from a drug-soaked haze to see another bed beside his, and Johanna asleep in it. He’d closed his eyes knowing he was safe again with her there.

Johanna laughed too but it sounded funny to his ears, a high little girlish titter that didn’t quite fit her. “Maybe I got a little too pushy about making them move me into his room. I’m sorry, Mister President, I didn’t mean to sound like I was unappreciative of everything they did for him, and for me. I was just really worried about him.” Without looking down, Haymitch reached over and found her hand among the folds of her green skirt down by her left thigh. Her fingers clutched desperately at his once again, her palm nervously damp just like his was.

He felt like he could breathe again only after the crown was on his head, a heavy weight for such a little bit of metal, and they had left the mansion.

~~~~~~~~~~

The cameras were a constant during their post-Games, right from catching them dressed in black-trimmed pale green hospital pajamas and black robes, talking quietly as they recuperated from their wounds. Johanna noted that there had been no cameras before that, when the wounds were still ugly and raw rather than cleaned up enough to be merely dramatic. Sensing the tired cynicism suddenly in her own thoughts, feeling about a hundred years old, she’d felt a little sick. Even though it was a bright July morning now at the train station, she felt cold in a way that summertime wouldn’t quite cure.

Of course they were filming the dual victors of the Second Quell as they said goodbye. Neither of them had gotten to the point where they could just forget the cameras pointed at them, considering she could just look up over Haymitch’s shoulder and see them standing there with their equipment, and Honoria Delight and Minerva Triumph hovering over the two of them, beaming down at their charges with too-white teeth and too-conspicuous pride.

They’d loaded the white, silver-trimmed coffins minutes ago, before they started filming. The Capitol didn’t care about _them_ enough to put that on tape. But she and Haymitch had seen them anyway, and thinking of riding back to Seven with three dead bodies ready to be buried beneath Capitol-mandated marble markers in the tribute cemetery rather than with their own people made her sick. “I wish it was any other train than one with coffins,” she told him, as they kept holding on to each other a little bit too long. 

“Best be getting used to it. We’ll both be coming back with at least one coffin a year from now on,” he said, a darkness to his tone. She tried to suppress a shudder as she realized he was right. Cedrus would retire, Blight would take on the male mentor role, and she’d step in for the females. Haymitch would have both the girl and boy tribute for Twelve. And even in a victorious year, one kid would be coming home dead—between the two of them, only one in four left alive of their tributes was the best they could hope for.

That dark fear in her soul seemed to grow by just a bit more at the thought. She realized she didn’t want to let him go, and watch him walk away to his own train next to hers to go back to Twelve. They hadn’t been apart since that day they met in the clearing in the arena, and now he was going away, the one person she knew she could trust through anything. 

But she wasn’t going to let the Capitol see her cry. Never again would she show them that kind of weakness. So with one last hug, she forced herself to let go of him. “See you on the Victory Tour,” she told him.

He smiled at her, though it didn’t reach his ancient, solemn grey eyes. “Yeah. See you this winter. You take care of yourself, OK?” They hesitated yet again, not wanting to sever that bond and let it go. But they had to and he was the first one to take a step away. She watched him walk away, shoulders squared, and she turned to her own train because at least then the cameras would shut off rather than watch her staring.

The ride back to Seven was quiet. She slept a lot, which was partly because she didn’t feel up to much more, partly because she ended up jerking awake from nightmares more often than not, and partly because then she didn’t have to listen to Minerva. Cedrus and Blight just let her go, moved soft and quiet around her with no sudden moves, and she was grateful for that. They at least understood some of it. Sometimes she thought about Haymitch headed far to the east, with only Honoria and three coffins to keep him company.

The cameras were waiting, but so were her mom and dad and Bern and Heike, and she went into their arms. Her dad’s fierce bear hug, her mom’s searching gaze, Bern’s teasing and Heike’s shy smiles—she tried to tell herself that she was home and she’d be OK now, that their Hanna had come back.

Pretending that was true was better than admitting she knew their little Hanna was as dead as the bodies in those fancy coffins. There just wouldn’t be any tree planted in order to mark the passing.

~~~~~~~~~~

At the train station, Ash hugged him too fast, clinging to him with all the strength in his little eleven-year-old body, and Haymitch almost wanted to slap his hands away, turn and run, the need to simply _escape_ taking precedence over anything else. But he forced himself to calm down, to ruffle Ash’s curls—showing dark brown rather than black in the summer sun, as always—and mutter gruffly, “Missed you, runt.” Finally it settled in and he relaxed a little, holding on to Ashin turn. This was home. He was alive and he would be safe now, wouldn’t he?

His ma hugged him fiercely too, and for a stupid moment he wanted to cling to her like he was a little kid waking up from a nightmare, bury his face in her shoulder and just start up bawling, waiting for her to somehow make it all better. But he wasn’t going to wake up from this one, was he? The monster was him now, not some imaginary thing lurking in the corner.

Then there was Briar, and his heart twisted with mingled love and guilt as he saw she’d hung back rather than come forward to greet him. Was that some kind of Capitol mandate—family only? Or was she already having cause to doubt him because of seeing him with Johanna Mason on that television screen and she’d chosen to stick to the crowd? He didn’t know, but it hurt like hell anyway.

She gave him a small smile and raised her hand briefly. He’d have to try to talk to her later, reassure her that nothing had happened, that he and Johanna were just…whatever word worked. Friends? They’d used that onstage with Caesar, but it seemed kind of pale and flimsy for what they’d been through together. But he could say for certain Johanna wasn’t his girl, she never needed to worry about that, not for a moment. The thought of losing Briar hit him with a sense of overwhelming dread. The arena had been bad enough but if what he’d become in there was something she couldn’t stand? He needed her, needed to believe that maybe at least some of him had come back home, enough to try to move forward and build some kind of a life.

He woke up screaming that first night and then he did end up with his face turned into his ma’s shoulder, breath in hitching sobs as she talked to him in a low voice, no sudden moves. 

His ma, who’d grown up rough even for the Seam, who’d married a man who drank and beat the hell out of her, who’d been going to their Head Peacekeeper for years to keep her kids fed, who’d survived all those years in the mines—years and years without any escape. That was toughness. All he’d done was kill a couple kids, survive a few weeks of roughing it. He felt ashamed of sniveling like a little baby when she bore up all of that without complaint. 

“At least we’ll get a good house and you’ll never have to work again,” he said finally once he was calmer, shamed beyond bearing at that kind of weakness. _Never have to go to that bastard Fog again either for what coins he gives you_. He’d seen the man lurking there at the train station a little too close to his ma, as if he had some kind of claim on her. He looked up at her and tried to smile, put a hopeful and even cheerfully glib spin on it, pretending it didn’t matter. “Honoria’s got a whole mess of stuff for us to go through, some furniture to pick or whatever. We’ll finally have some nice things.” 

She looked at him and her fingers were gentle as she touched his hair, and he thought he saw a sudden wet shine in her grey eyes in the candlelight. “Oh, baby,” she sighed, and her own smile was shaky as his, “you know this isn’t ever how I’d have wanted it.”

Ash slept with their ma the next night rather than end up scared shitless by Haymitch’s terrors. For an eleven-year-old boy to not openly whine about having to share a bed with his ma like a little kid, Haymitch knew that solemnly clever brain of his little brother’s saw and understood far too much, as usual.

Honoria came with her books and they sat there and tried to pretend they were enthusiastic. Even Ash’s excitement over having a bed of his own was muted. They moved into that house. Yellow kitchen where his ma now cooked their too-rich meals and all of them got sick as dogs until they started to adjust to it, comfy green couch in the parlor that he sometimes slept on because the bed was too soft. He kept a knife close at hand when he slept, and a small bedside lamp on because now he didn’t need to worry about wasting candles.

A month later, in the August heat, he tried to go out in the woods to run his traps, and he made it about a hundred feet into the trees. Then thoughts of cat-mutts and golden squirrels and pink birds and Careers had him looking around wildly, racing back for the fence in sheer terror. It wasn’t safe. It would never be safe because he was alone out there and he didn’t have anyone he could trust to have his back, because Johanna was in Seven.

~~~~~~~~~

She sat in the new house in Victors’ Glade all that summer, the winter town slow with only the merchants and dedicated millers and carpenters once the lumber crews all headed back to the camps. Of course Johanna wasn’t going with them and now she never would. The Capitol’s “generosity” ensured she’d never need to work a day in her life, so why on earth would she want to go north to the camps?

She wanted to be there with them, out in the woods, though the longing was mingled with fear of what might be out there. The portable forcefields might surround the camp safely at night, but there were mutts out there, and lumberjacks got killed by forest cats in broad daylight every single year. So maybe the woods wouldn’t feel as much like home as they had before. But sitting there, made useless and with all her old friends away with their families and with nothing to occupy her mind, all she could do was think about the arena over and over.

Bern had made the jump to full-time carpenter a year ago with his skilled hands, a source of fierce pride to their dad, so he at least had a job to go to every day. Whenever he finally settled down, any woman in Seven would be glad to have him. Heike read a lot and tentatively tried to draw Johanna into games and the like, though that quickly stopped when she saw that her older sister’s heart really wasn’t in it. Her parents seemed to not know what to do with themselves in this forced idleness after twenty-five years of logging camp. They didn’t much seem to know what to do with her sometimes either, though she knew they tried.

All in all, she felt suddenly rootless, yanked up from everything that had given her life meaning, and left there to rot. She read. She slept badly. She picked up hobby after hobby with Minerva fussing at her that she’d have to have something to show for herself come the Victory Tour. She braided Heike’s hair with ribbons she bought her little sister, and thought of the set of blue ribbons that had been so precious a gift last New Year’s. She could buy all the ribbons she wanted now and it had only cost the lives of forty-six kids. She went to town and bought candy she didn’t want and trinkets she didn’t need simply to have something to do. She wondered how Haymitch was doing in Twelve.

She turned seventeen in August and her mom and dad bought her a fancy cake from the bakery in town. Chocolate, with thick swirls of vanilla frosting—it was beautiful, something as a kid she’d have always wished to have. Now she’d rather have had bread and the small treat of some jam or honey like every other year, but looking at their faces, seeing the concern and the love there, she ate the cake and pretended she loved it. That night she muffled her tears into her pillow, unable to even explain why she was crying.

Then one day in September Sextia Crimson, the Head Peacekeeper, came to chat with the Masons about Heike apparently regularly sneaking a lot of food from their pantry and giving it to other kids at school. The big blond woman sat there in the parlor with a roaring fire against the autumn chill. The five Masons gathered solemnly around as their Head started throwing terms like “unauthorized food distribution” and “against the Code of Conduct” around. Johanna felt a terror she couldn’t quite place, knowing only that if the Capitol noticed and it was displeased, it didn’t bode well. Meanwhile Heike sat there looking like she just wanted to disappear through the floor.

“I just thought we had so much now and they still had nothing,” she’d whispered, biting her lip, eyes filling up with tears. Her mom reached over to rub Heike’s shoulder reassuringly. Bern and her dad sat like they were carved wooden statues.

“The Capitol provides for its citizens and it’s not your job to interfere with that system,” Head Crimson said crisply. “Is that understood?”

It was understood loud and clear. She had far too much food and money now and she couldn’t do anything with them for anyone beyond the occasional gift. She could do nothing that would change their lives or raise them out of poverty or despair. _It’s all so worthless,_ she thought, looking around her at the big house with a sense of fury.

Autumn came and the crews came back south to pick up their winter jobs. School started again but she didn’t go there either. Some of her old friends came to call. Holly, Bud, Franz, Rhus—all of them saying how glad they were to see her, trying to get her to go out. She went, grateful beyond words to have something to do, people to be with besides her own family.

In late September Rhus came alone one day, stammering awkwardly, “Seeing you there in the arena…Hanna. I got to thinking…I don’t want to lose you.” The cynical part of her thought for a moment that maybe now that she was rich, he could afford to see her as a girl in a way he never had before when she was just his friend and the Masons were as poor as the Amsells. But his hazel eyes looked at her with a glimmer of anxiety, his dark brown hair sticking up in porcupine spikes like he’d been running his hands through it just before he knocked on the door, and he always did that when he was nervous.

At least he didn’t see her as pathetic and weak like she’d been at the beginning, or responding to the murmurs about the viciousness with which she’d disposed of the One girl in that final fight. Looking at him, she could believe he finally saw her, and that it had been the arena that gave him that scare into awareness. “All right,” she said, reaching out and taking his hand in hers. 

She tried, and he tried. She could let herself try to pretend it was all right. This was Rhus and he was her friend, and now he realized that he loved her.

Being snugged down together in the thick carpet of crimson and gold of fallen leaves out in the forest, his lips on hers and then later their hands warm against bare skin in the rapidly-cooling autumn air as they explored, careful to not take it too far, would have been everything Johanna Mason wanted a year ago. 

She wasn’t that girl and while he made her feel good, that sense of despair never quite let up. Too many things she could never explain to him. She never felt safe—whether he was in danger from her or she was in danger from the world, she wasn’t quite sure, but in the end, it wasn’t enough. Rhus loved the girl he’d known, and that Johanna had longed for him. But she wasn’t there. By November and the first snows, she kissed him goodbye and told him, “I’m not what you need.” Told him he’d always be welcome at her house, as her friend, stressing that last word. He took it well. 

At least that night she actually knew why she cried herself to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ash turned twelve in October. To mark the occasion, Haymitch bought his knowledge-hungry little brother a nice set of books—even if all he could buy was the usual Capitol-approved crap some swelled heads thought would be “educational” to the districts and not present any kind of dangerous ideas. He wondered just what kind of books they’d had in old North America and if they’d been half as stupid, but of course he would never know—all those books were gone. He also ordered a cake from Liam Mellark.

But even as he gave it the trappings of a celebration, he couldn’t help but look at Ash with concern. His little brother was turning twelve. Starting his seven years of reapings next July, and no siblings had ever both survived the arena to come back as victors. That cynical, too-old, dark-hearted part of him that seemed to grow more and more present as time went by wondered if that wasn’t deliberate on the part of the Gamemakers. It wouldn’t do for any family in the districts to have _too_ much hope, now.

The thought of Ash being reaped made him sick enough. The thought of being his mentor and the only person in the world scrambling to try to save him—and he didn’t even know how to do that yet—just made it all the worse. But reality was two kids next summer would depend on him anyway to save their lives. He couldn’t stand that thought. He couldn’t stand the idea of going back to the Capitol and watching another Games, knowing what he did now from hard-won experience.

He wanted to go back to the kid he’d been, but there was no way to repeat the past. All he could do was try to cope, badly enough, with the present reality. So he bought his friends gifts where he could because he couldn’t just openly feed their families, could he, and he sat at home while they were in school trying to develop some talent like the Capitol demanded of him, and he tried to not go more crazy than he suspected he already was.

He went out into the woods occasionally with Briar and Jonas and Burt, but it wasn’t the same and he knew they didn’t feel comfortable with him like they had. He kept looking anxiously over his shoulder, trying to stifle that feeling of danger. He managed to go out there with Ash, determined to teach his little brother the skills he would need, because being a victor’s brother wouldn’t get him by in life once he was eighteen and on his own. For Ash’s sake, he managed to stifle the terror, but when he got back, he headed to the bathroom and threw up, and he had to convince himself the rabbit and blueberries at dinner weren’t secretly poisoned.

By late October, he knew for certain he wasn’t getting better. This was how he was always going to be. He looked at Briar one day and saw how she was around him. She moved carefully, she took care to speak up to let him know she was there, she even watched him carefully. He remembered when he came back she’d tried to teasingly hug him from behind, the old “Guess who?” game they’d played just fine before the reaping, and he’d ended up shoving her away in a blind panic. She’d sat there on the floor looking stunned, rubbing her arm where she’d landed on it, and in that moment he felt like he just wanted to die.

A few months later now, he was sure she couldn’t possibly trust him—how could she? He didn’t even trust himself around people now. Seeing her there, a barely seventeen-year-old girl grown too old before her time, solemn and careful whereas before she’d been laughing and pushy and funny and smart and just a little bit wild, he thought of the women he saw sometimes around the Seam whose husbands were too fond of the white liquor, women whose bruised cheeks came from “falling down”. They moved careful like that. They watched every moment with that kind of vigilance.

 _She’s afraid of me,_ he thought, feeling sick. _Maybe she pities me._ The best thing he could do was let her go, let her find someone else who could bring back that laughing, loving Briar Wainwright. It hurt like hell because the boy that loved her so fiercely had been the best of him, but he wouldn’t make her one more martyr to that fucking arena by making her stay by his side.

So he waited for her by the schoolyard where they’d always used to walk home together during that handful of precious months they’d been stepping out. It had been around this time last year that they’d first kissed out in the woods and agreed they wanted to give it a try, he remembered, when the leaves were done changing and it turned to raw and bitter winds. Too cold for bare skin out in the forest, so they’d had to content themselves through that long winter with stolen kisses and a few frustrated clothed fumbles up in either of their bedrooms. It seemed incredible a year ago that his most pressing concern had been thinking he might actually die waiting until spring before he could see her naked out in the forest and touch her at his leisure, and waiting three full years to be able to make love with her seemed impossible to bear. What a stupid kid he’d been.

Seeing her, he had his hands stuffed in his pockets—he had good woolen gloves now but he’d forgotten them at home. Or maybe he’d forgotten them deliberately because flaunting that in front of all the other kids with their ragged mittens or nothing at all for cold-nipped fingers would really be an asshole move. His nice coat was bad enough, as well as being an interloper standing there rather than one of them, coming from class.

She wore that same mended cherry-red hat she’d worn since she was eleven. He thought he would always remember that about this day. But he wasted no time. “I can’t give you what you deserve, Bri,” he told her. “Maybe someday I could make you a rich man’s wife, but it ain’t worth it. The money, _it ain’t worth_ what it costs you. I can’t watch you turn into something else like this and try to pretend I’m still the one you love. I’m not.” His voice cracked from the stress of it. “I’m never gonna be that kid again. And I’m not gonna take you down with me.”

The track of tears shone clear upon her cheeks, but she met his eyes squarely. “I’ll always be your friend, Hay,” she said. “I want that, OK?” He was relieved at that, because to lose her entirely might be more than he could stand. But he noticed she didn’t argue with him, and he was relieved for that too. She leaned in and kissed him, and the salt taste of those tears told him it really was goodbye.

Going home, he tried to not cry like a damn baby himself, even if he felt like it. He’d done what he had to do and he’d been honest about it, and being honest was more than the Capitol wanted to allow him. But he felt like shit anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~

Of course the question was now just how to do a two-victor, two-district Victory Tour. The Capitol newscasters had speculated for months just how the Gamemakers would make this unprecedented Tour come alive. Finally Seneca Crane the Sixth, the Head Gamemaker, was pleased to announce to the people of Panem the format of this _very special_ Victory Tour to celebrate the Second Quarter Quell and its dual victors.

They would begin in Twelve, as most Tours did. But as Johanna didn’t know the district, they’d spend a few nights there so that District Seven’s victor could come to know the district of her fellow victor. Likewise, when the order descended down to Seven, she’d return the favor for Haymitch and introduce him to District Seven. The other ten districts, and the Capitol, would proceed as planned, although the gala in the Capitol would be much bigger than usual as befitted a Quarter Quell.

“Oh, that’ll be great television,” Blight muttered sarcastically, sitting back in his recliner, carefully shaving another curl of wood off the block of beech in his hands. She’d gone to watch the mandatory newscast at his house. Sometimes it felt a lot more comfortable watching these things with another victor. Besides, he was her mentor so he’d have advice about how she would somehow manage the horror of a Victory Tour and relive the Games all over again. As if they’d even left her in the first place—her nightmares readily attested they hadn’t. “They’ll want to film the two of you with each other’s families, of course. And each of you showing the other around the district. Be ready for that. I’ll do my best to prep your family. And I’ll be ready to advise Haymitch too. Maeda got excused from the Victory Tour. I think after your victor interview, they like it better with the image that the boy did it pretty much alone.”

“Doesn’t sound like she did much of anything for him anyway,” she said.

Blight raised an eyebrow. “Maybe not, but with a native Twelve mentor, at least now she and all the other One, Two, and Four spares won’t have to worry about the Games again.”

She realized the two of them didn’t have that luxury. “Thanks for the advice,” she muttered, sitting there on the rug with her knees drawn up to her chest.

“Stay steady as much as you can,” he advised her. “They’ll want you to be polite and understated in the districts to honor their fallen tributes.”

“Oh, please,” she said, “like we don’t resent the hell out of every year’s victor when their Tour rubs them in our faces and they pretend they actually give a shit about our two dead kids. They don’t. Especially when it’s the Careers.”

“Get good at pretending you give a shit, then. Because you’ve got _four_ dead kids in most of those districts that they’ll want you to graciously acknowledge.”

“Wow, you’re such an amazing mentor, Blight, with encouragement like that.” Who was this person speaking now, all hard-edged and brittle? Sure, she’d been mouthy before, but sometimes the things she said now startled even her with how bitchy they were.

“Career districts will probably be worst. They’ll resent you a bit. They took a bad hit this year. Twelve bites at the apple and none of ‘em worked. Particularly considering you and the boy took out five—or six, if you count the one Four boy you gave a mercy-kill—of them yourselves.”

“Poor babies.” Considering they won most of the time, she couldn’t feel too sorry. The three that would have killed her slowly in that clearing to appeal to the sponsors got little pity from her, or the One girl who’d nearly killed her in the end. But then she thought about Bream and how he’d died and she shut her mouth. 

“But in the Capitol, you should be funny. Be proudly victorious. Be a little cocky, even. They’ll want to celebrate you and be dazzled by you. Acting somber won’t work. They don’t want to think about dead tributes.”

She remembered the two of them playfully bickering with each other at the victor interview, and how forced it had felt to her. But the audience had roared for more. “Fine,” she said, looking away from Blight. “Guess I’ll just be whatever I have to be to make everyone happy,” and the bitterness in her tone surprised even her. She knew by now that being honest about the Games and the horror of it wouldn’t work. The other people from the district didn’t want to hear about all that because they didn’t understand it, and they probably unconsciously resented her a little bit for her sudden riches and Capitol favor. The Capitol certainly didn’t want to hear the truth either—they wanted the glittering girl in a pretty green dress, helpfully cleaned up from all that arena gore. They wanted Seven’s first female victor, spunky and witty and just a little dangerously fearsome with an axe. They wanted the celebrity, but not the thing they’d made of her in their arena.

She felt a light touch on her shoulder. “Then you might be smart enough to get through this,” he said softly, a whole world of rueful knowledge in his voice. Something in her went cold at it with the fear pervading her very bones, wondering if there was something he maybe wasn’t saying, but she couldn’t bear to ask.


	3. Chapter 3

She and Blight, unfortunately accompanied by Minerva, arrived in District Twelve after a snowstorm, the train delayed by a few hours because of it. Neither she nor Blight thought too much of that. They were used to a good hard snow from back home—the winter town, being by Lake Sawyer, regularly got the snow heaped on it pretty deep.

She sat in her seat, sinking into the plush cushioned depths of it as they cleared the tracks, watching the swirl of the last few flakes. Blight sat there with a glass of whiskey in his hand, sipping at it slowly. “I’d suggest,” he told her quietly, sending a few whiskey fumes her way, “you give the boy a good greeting.”

“What’s a good greeting?” she said with a nervous snort. “Shaking hands? Sticking my tongue down his throat?”

“Hug him,” Blight said with a shrug. “Make it clear you’re still good friends and you’re happy to see him. Be nice to his family too.”

 _I am happy to see him,_ she thought, stirring her tea a little too furiously. _I’d have been happy to see him any time since the Games, but I couldn’t, could I? Couldn’t even call him on that stupid telephone. No inter-district calls allowed, they said. So just who am I supposed to call? Capitol idiots?_ Bad enough that twit Minerva kept calling to remind her to develop her talent and be ready for the Tour and all of that. President Snow himself had called a week ago to convey his pleasure in greeting her again at the end of her Tour, and even though she knew his allowing two victors was the reason she was still alive, she’d wanted to shudder the entire time. “OK,” she said curtly, finishing her tea and dropping the spoon on the dish with a heavy clink. She had the stupid urge to break the fragile china cup just to destroy something in this too-perfect, too-opulent Capitol setting, but what purpose would it serve?

Finally the train lurched to a start again, and within the hour they’d reached the district center of Twelve. All covered in a blanket of crisp, clean white as it was, the place didn’t look half as bad as she imagined. On Reaping Days on television, even the town square looked kind of grey and grim, like somehow the depressing life of the coal miners had permeated every single inch of it. But today it sparkled, like it had been made just for the cameras.

Bundled up in her coat and gloves and hat and scarf as she was, she wasn’t sure she made for a great figure for the camera herself. Scanning the row of people waiting, equally bundled up, she wasn’t sure which one was him. But then—oh. Of course. The nice new dark wool coat, compared to the shabby patched jobs most of the others were wearing. The raised hand in greeting confirmed it, and she headed over.

She reached out and took his hands in hers. He held that distant—no hug, not yet. He respected that they needed a little distance before just lunging into each other’s space, and she liked him better for it. He was definitely a few inches taller than he’d been over the summer, probably had a full half-foot on her now. She now had to tip her head back a little to look him in the eyes. “Glad you made it OK, Johanna,” he said, words casual. But even through the thick gloves, his fingers clenched hers tightly, and his grey eyes bored into hers as if he couldn’t get enough of the sight of her. Was he feeling the same relief as her?

“Glad to be here,” she said, and it was true, but it definitely wasn’t because of the Victory Tour.

He smiled a little at that and jerked his head over his shoulder, back towards a hill leading away from the town. “C’mon. Let’s get you and Blight settled in up at the Village.” Following him, she noticed the townspeople queuing up for distribution of the food that had been packed into one car of the train for this month’s Parcel Day. She thought about the people in Seven getting their own food parcels, needing them more than ever now in the middle of another harsh northern winter, and she felt like at least she’d managed to do one good thing for District Seven. 

It looked like it was exactly the same here, and even though the people had the same quiet patience in waiting for their parcels, she could see the eagerness with which they clutched them in hands clad only in ragged mittens or nothing at all, holding those little cheerily-colored cardboard boxes close like they were precious as life itself. Because they were, weren’t they?

Realizing from a few calm but unwavering looks right back at her that she was staring at them openly, like they were some kind of curiosity, she felt her cheeks burning in a way that didn’t have to do with the cold. She wondered if the cameras were going to label that her first impressions of this different district, and she hurried after Haymitch before they could keep rolling.

~~~~~~~~~~

His ma had tried to spend the week before the Tour cleaning the house. “We can hire someone, Ma,” he protested, hating the sight of her on her hands and knees on the kitchen floor, sleeves pushed to her elbows and scrubbing with a vengeance. If she still worked herself to the bone like that, what had it all been for anyway?

She’d looked up at him with an arched eyebrow. “Are you too proud to do your own work now like an honest man, Haymitch Abernathy?”

“No, Ma,” he said, embarrassed and angry all at once. So he’d changed, but damn it, he hadn’t changed that much. “I just…want you to…to…” He trailed off awkwardly.

She sighed and dropped the scrub brush in the bucket, standing and pressing her hands to the small of her back. A few wisps of her dark, curly hair fell in her eyes. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. This is…still new.” She put her hands on his shoulders, lightly squeezing. “And I suppose it’d be a good thing to share the wealth a bit.” They both knew Seam people wouldn’t take charity if they could help it. But she had a better way with it, how to make the offer without making it an insult, and soon enough his ma’s friend Magdalena Folkstone came to do the scrubbing and beating out the carpets and all of that, given she had three kids at home and a husband crippled in the mines last winter.

The house soon sparkled because he knew they’d all be damned if they gave any excuse at all for Capitol people to think they were filthy and crude here in Twelve and didn’t know how to keep a place nice. Maybe they hadn’t been fancy down in the Seam house, but the place was always as spotlessly clean as lye soap and elbow grease could make it, even against the ever-present intrusion of coal dust.

So by the time he brought Johanna and Blight back from the train station those days later, he knew at least it was more than presentable. His ma made the tea and then the five of them sat around the table—himself, his ma, Ash, Johanna, and Blight. All of them pretending this here was just a nice social outing and that the cameras weren’t waiting right outside the door.

Blight gave a slight smile to Haymitch’s ma. “Thank you for the tea. Haven’t had a nice pot of it like this in a long time.” 

“Get yourself a wife, then. Shouldn’t be too hard, handsome boy like you,” his ma said easily with a laugh, and Haymitch was gratified that Blight chuckled as well, and didn’t object that he was twenty-four and hardly a boy. Gratified too that she hadn’t mentioned that Blight was probably one hell of a desirable husband with his victor’s riches—once the girls had heard the gossip that he and Briar had called it off, they’d tried, because he was suddenly a catch. He’d had to make it clear he wasn’t interested to a good half-dozen before word got around. He didn’t want any of them. Not right now, when it was all still so sharp, and especially not when he knew they were coming around mostly because he had money, not because they liked snarky little Haymitch Abernathy. Not that he blamed them at all; they were just trying to look out for the future as best they could. But that didn’t mean he had to take them up on it.

“Do you mind if I steal the kids for a bit?” Blight asked, a cheerful smile on his face as he spoke to the women. “I figure they’ll want some kind of shot of us here. Young victors together and all that. Plus I should probably go over some things with Haymitch, being as he’s got no mentor along for the Tour.”

“Of course. Be back by lunch, though. I’m not wasting the meal,” and there was pick-sharp steel in his ma’s voice as she said it. Some things would never change, Haymitch suspected, and abundant and rich as the food was now, he thought he would still never be able to take it for granted. Too bad he couldn’t package it up and send it down the hill, but he remembered well what Blight had said before Haymitch left the Capitol in a stolen moment at the train station. _Don’t obviously try to overturn the status quo_. It was fine to give his friends an apple or a package of real beef-steak every now and again. That was simple victor generosity. But to do it every day wouldn’t do at all. 

Bundling up again in their coats and winter gear, they trundled out into the bitter chill again. Walking around the green of the Village, looking at the frozen pond, Haymitch asked Blight curiously, “No cameras yet?” He couldn’t say he was disappointed about that.

“No, the schedule says they’re filming with the mayor right now to get his thoughts on your victory,” Blight said dryly. “I wanted to talk to you two.”

The last time Blight had wanted to talk to him Haymitch had gotten those warnings about how to handle things here in Twelve. He suddenly felt uncomfortable, knowing whatever Blight was going to say, it couldn’t be good. If it was just general advice like he’d implied to Haymitch’s ma, he wouldn’t have hesitated so much, given how blunt he’d been back in the Capitol, even quiet as he’d kept his voice. “And?” he said carefully, looking over at Johanna, whose eyes had turned sharp and attentive.

“Cedrus—understand this, OK? He’s still from the older generation of victors. The ones where the Games were all about revenge and everyone was expected to keep their mouths shut and just take whatever punishment the Capitol saw fit to give. He’s used to thinking there’s no point talking about any of it and generally being afraid to speak up at all, even on the sly.” Blight shook his head, with his large frame and bulky coat looking something like an angry bear. “But it’s changed some, and Ced, he’s still stuck in that mindset where you don’t say _anything_.”

Johanna’s voice cut sharply through the winter air. “What are you saying, Blight?”

“I’m taking a chance on this, all right? But Ced let me walk into it blind and it was sheer hell. I don’t know if it’s going to be worse, knowing beforehand, but at least I won’t feel like there was more I could have done, and maybe you’ll be a little more prepared.”

Standing there, stamping his feet for a moment against the cold, Haymitch said finally, “You might as well have done with it and tell us.”

Blight looked at Johanna first, then at him, and said very clearly, “You’re both popular with the Capitol crowds. Quell victors, dual victors. The first Twelve victor in a long time. The first female Seven victor. You’re appealing and they’ve given you a sympathetic, charming image.”

“And?” Johanna asked, the single word sounding oddly stiff. 

“There are people there with a lot of money or influence who are going to want your company. Maybe some of them, they’ll just want you to escort them to a party so the celebrity press can see it. But some of them…” His gruff voice suddenly faltered and he looked away, as if embarrassed. “Some of them are going to want to sleep with you, and you’re going to have to let them do it. Because if you don’t, President Snow will make sure to take it out on the people you don’t want hurt.”

Haymitch stared at him, hoping against hope that maybe he just hadn’t heard quite right. But hoping it was all a nightmare hadn’t helped him in the arena, or the months since then.

~~~~~~~~~~

Blight couldn’t have just said that. But even as she tried to convince herself of that, she thought about it. The Capitol liked him, the big, bluff, easygoing Seven victor, and he’d been caught plenty on the arms of some of the Capitol elite, to the point where people in Seven started to wonder if the glamour of it all hadn’t gone to his head.

Her stomach churned and the taste of acid was suddenly at the back of her throat. Swallowing it down with an effort, she crossed her arms over her chest tightly as if to somehow protect herself from that bit of news. “When?” she asked simply.

“Starting next Games.” The sympathy in Blight’s eyes, and the pained understanding of having been there, was all too clear and she had to look away. “You get something of a reprieve,” he told Haymitch, “so long as you have at least one tribute still standing. Until then, your primary duty is to Mentor Central. Johanna…you and I will be on shifts. Junior mentor always gets night shift because it’s easier while you’re still learning the basics. Even the Capitol won’t mess with that. They like their little victor traditions and so long as we have tributes in it, they’d rather see you focusing on the Games, being a mentor.” Nothing usually happened at night, she remembered. Their arena was an exception to that. “But once we’re out of it, or if the Games go on too long and they get really impatient, I’ll have to cover for you if you have an appointment with a patron.”

“How bad was it your first year?” she asked through stiff lips, feeling like the reprieve he offered was no reprieve at all. “We made it to the final eight then.”

“Ced had to cover for me for a few hours on two nights,” Blight admitted frankly. “But Snow won’t allow full-night appointments so long as you’re still mentoring.” He smiled a peculiar, bitter smile. “Being denied with only a taste just whets their appetites for later anyway. They’ll pay more that way.”

The thought of being a mentor was more than bad enough, but this opened up a whole new ordeal she hadn’t even considered. Haymitch dug the toe of one boot into the snow and spoke up, voice devoid of its usual animation. “So there’s nothing we can do. No way out of it.”

“Kid, if there was any escape at all, don’t you think someone would have managed it in fifty years?” Blight said with a bark of laughter. “By the way, if you’re thinking of offing yourself, the one victor who tried that back in the 20s botched the job, and their family suffered a ‘mysterious accident’ the next week. All dead. Lost at sea.”

“Maeda,” Haymitch guessed, tone still utterly flat.

“Maeda,” Blight confirmed with a nod. “No, she didn’t do her job by you, but Maeda’s never been exactly well, from what Ced tells me.”

“How long is this going to go on?” she asked, desperate to try to grasp some small ray of hope.

“As long as someone wants to buy you. A lot of us are just a flash in the pan. One or two years into it, the novelty quickly fades—the offers stop coming. Obviously sometimes it lasts longer. It has with me.” He sighed, exhaling in a misty puff of white vapor. “I’ve heard of ten, fifteen years,” he admitted with obvious reluctance. “There’s no telling.”

She felt that threatening menace again trying to take over her mind. Maybe it would be easier to just give in. But it hadn’t helped in the arena. She hadn’t been gone to the point of being totally mindless, insensible of what she was doing, she’d just been helpless. Totally at the mercy of anyone who might have stumbled across her then. Besides, she’d sworn then that they wouldn’t see her that weak again. They seemed to have bought her abashed explanation in the victor interview that she’d been so afraid of never seeing her family again that she’d gotten embarrassingly emotional, and of course she was ashamed of herself. Their sympathetic excuses and admiring applause for how wonderful and strong she’d been to overcome her fear to not only seriously enter the Games, but to emerge as a victor, had sickened her. She would have to face this and stand strong as she could. “So you’re telling us because you think we should know?”

“Because it’s better than walking into Snow’s office and having him tell you just what he’s going to let people do to you. They prepare ‘em for this in One and probably they’ll be doing it soon in Four as well, and they handle it better for that.”

“Prepare,” Haymitch said with a derisive snort. “Get ourselves ready to be whored out, you mean.”

“Yes,” Blight told him. “Why? Your pride worth more to you than your family’s lives? I thought you folks here understood enduring some hardship.”

Haymitch turned on his heel, staring at Blight with eyes blazing bright with fury, and she was sure those hands were clenched into fists at his side. He looked murderous, like a boy who’d taken lives. “Damn you,” he snarled, “you arrogant shit, you walk in here from Seven like you know everything and you don’t know the first thing about this place or about me or my life. My ma’s had to go and be a whore to a Peacekeeper ever since I could remember just to help keep me and Ash fed. Two growing boys, huh? We needed more than some lousy miner’s wages and my tesserae and what Ash and I could get out in the woods. You don’t know me, you don’t know my life, so you _shut your fucking mouth_ about what I understand.”

Then something in his expression crumpled and he looked again like a flustered, deeply embarrassed teenage boy rather than the killer poised on the edge of violence. “I’d appreciate it,” he said thickly, and he didn’t quite look at either of them, “if you don’t tell my ma I told you that.”

Johanna thought of brisk but kind Mrs. Abernathy up there in that big house in the Victors’ Village, a small woman with Haymitch’s eyes and Haymitch’s black curls. She thought of the woman enduring years and years of a Peacekeeper’s bed to keep her kids fed. It happened sometimes in Seven, particularly during the lean cold months in the winter town. But maybe it was even more common here in Twelve. “I won’t tell,” she told him softly.

“I know more than my share about keeping secrets,” Blight said with a weary smile. “After all, worst part is you can’t tell anyone. Not even your own family. It’s the president’s dirty little secret and if you let it out, trust me, you’ll regret it.”

~~~~~~~~~~

He wasn’t sure how he stayed on his feet for that revelation, given that it felt like it hit with almost physical force. But there was no chance Blight was just pulling his leg. This was utterly real, and it was going to happen to him. He thought of his ma taking to Head Fog’s bed and how she’d wept sometimes in the quiet kitchen when she thought Haymitch wasn’t awake, thought of those hours with Briar out in the forest this spring just past, and the vision of one of those tattooed, freakishly-colored Capitol people taking him into a bedroom, stripping him down, putting their hands all over him rose up like a nightmare.

He almost shoved it back down, but then he stopped. _It’s going to happen. You can’t hide from it like a little kid._ “At least we know,” he spoke up, voice sounding too calm to his own ears, like there was an absence of anything in it from the sheer effort to keep himself from screaming. “That’s…something.” He wasn’t sure he could thank Blight for harsh knowledge like that, but a Twelve kid knew something about gritted teeth and sheer cussed endurance in the face of what seemed unbearable. Poor and small and underfed they might be, but they were stubborn as anything here once they knew what they were up against. Maybe that was part of why Twelve always lost the Games—they never knew what to expect, unlike the well-trained Careers. If it had been simple persistence against harsh conditions and deprivation, he had no doubt District Twelve would win the damn thing most every year. So he could acknowledge that walking into it totally ignorant would probably have been worse. 

Blight nodded slightly, looking at the two of them with a hint of sympathy still on his features. Not pity, cloying as that would be, but the tough knowledge of a man who’d endured it himself. 

“I’ve already advised Johanna,” he told Haymitch. Johanna’s slight nod confirmed that. “On this Tour, they’ll expect you to be clever, of course. But don’t be too smart-mouthed. Nobody will want to see a boy seeming to make light of their district’s dead children. Be humble. Be gracious. Be polite. Be more somber than you were in the interview. It’s not about you and Johanna still being alive, so don’t get all giddy about that like you did. It’s about acknowledging the dead tributes.”

“Never mind that they don’t want us there,” Johanna muttered. 

Blight shot her a look and Johanna scowled back at him, finally looking away first. Then Blight continued. “But in the Capitol, let that all go and lighten up in a hurry, because they’ll want you to be funny and snarky and smart. They’ll want to remember only your victory, not forty-six dead tributes.” 

“So act like I’m in total mourning in the districts and then act like I’m partying in the Capitol,” he said dryly. Still stinging from the thought of turning into the Capitol’s fancy whore, he asked bitterly, “When do I get to be myself, do tell?”

Blight laughed, shaking his head. “On camera, you _always_ play your part as the gracious little victor. Don’t get any cute ideas. It’ll really be safer if you don’t.”

 _Safe_. Not telling anyone anything ever again would be safest, apparently. Though when he thought about it—of course Snow wouldn’t want people knowing about selling victors. Fawning worship about victors was one thing, but the sordid reality of paying for their bodies? The people there would want to pretend the victors took Capitol lovers willingly. To hear otherwise would shatter the illusion, and expose Snow as ruthless and self-interested, and that would threaten his image as the benevolent president. 

Not for the first time, Haymitch wondered what exactly Snow’s angle had been in letting both him and Johanna live, and now he thought he had it. Give desperate people a small thing above the usual expectations and claim it as a generous gift without conditions, and chances were they would be grateful enough with that tiny bit of grace to not be so angry about everything they weren’t getting. Snow could point to him and Johanna, and say, _But didn’t I gift you with the lives of two children this year from the goodness of my heart, when I had no obligation to do so, and this is the thanks I receive?_ Snow would expect two survivors to be enough to make the districts thankful, make them forget their grief and anger that forty-six children had died this year. It was like petting a dog and feeding it a treat, trusting it would forget the kicks it usually received.

“So we’re meant to smile and be so amazed at Snow’s kindness in letting us both live that we’ll keep the districts happy and make ‘em forget what a bad Games this really was,” he told Blight. 

Blight’s little half-smile answered Haymitch well enough, but he confirmed it with, “So you really are a sharp one, huh?”

After another few turns around the frozen pond, Blight nodded back towards the house in the Village. “Your mom’s going to kill us,” and Haymitch thought that only a victor could make that joke with that particular ironic amusement, “if we don’t get back for lunch, so let’s go. We’ve got filming to do this afternoon. First Johanna and I get to meet your family.”

Haymitch didn’t say how stupid it was that they’d be filming a fake version of a meeting that had already happened. Already he thought he understood that what the Capitol wanted, it got—and smart people didn’t question it if they wanted to keep those they loved safe from harm.

Johanna leaned over and nudged him lightly as they walked back. “So when do I get to meet the famous girlfriend?”

He realized she was trying to lighten it up and tease him, and trying a little too hard in an effort to cope with her own emotional turmoil. But it wasn’t enough to cut through the swell of the bitterness and the anger. “I let Briar go,” he said harshly, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I wasn’t going to be any good for her now.” He smirked over at her, trying to hide the pain by it. “Looks like I’m only fit to be a Capitol plaything from now on.”

~~~~~~~~~~

The filming that afternoon had been interminable, and Johanna had felt such relief at being able to retreat to the house across from the Abernathys’ that she and Blight were using as a guest house. It might have made more sense for them to sleep on the train than to put in the effort of prepping this place, but of course the Capitol had wanted them to feel “welcomed” for their stay here. So now she lay there in the bed that was so like her own back in the house in the Glade, unable to sleep, though tonight more than just restless thoughts of the arena haunted her. She wasn’t sure whether to be grateful to Blight for warning them rather than just letting them walk into it blind like Cedrus apparently had for him, or be furious with him for telling her and making her sick with fear for the next seven months, unable to tell even her own family. All the man had offered her was a warning and nothing else.

Was that really all there was? Years and years ahead of secrets and shame and no escape at all? She thanked him and hated him all at once for telling her about a trap ahead and just letting her know it was inevitable. If there was any way out, someone else would have found it. Not unless she wanted to kill herself, anyway, and she’d killed too many people to stay alive to just throw her life away like that. Besides, he’d made it pretty clear if she did that, it would mean Bern and Heike and her mom and dad would pay the price. 

Cracking open her door, she saw that the light beneath Blight’s door was out. Apparently he was fast asleep and she envied him that, wondered if it somehow got easier with a few years of distance. She knew she wouldn’t sleep at all tonight. 

Sitting there on the bed, hands worrying at each other nervously, she tried to decide what to do. No escape from the inevitability, but there were seven months stretching ahead of her before the jaws of the trap closed fully. Until then, she could go make it happen on her own terms first, couldn’t she? It wasn’t much, but it was something, a little defiance of keeping something as hers.

There was always Rhus. Even if they’d broken up, if she went after him, went and bought a bottle of tonic from the apothecary—normally they wouldn’t sell to a teen with no job and at risk of the reaping, but she had money and would never be reaped again. She could do that. She could go to him, tell him she had it handled and there was no worry of him being a dad while he still might be in the Games, and she could probably make it happen. He liked her more than enough to want to sleep with her—he’d proved that well enough. And then what would she do? Break up with him again because a future with him was impossible? Get his hopes up and then leave him confused as anything and probably feeling uncomfortably used, because she couldn’t tell him what was going on? He was her friend still. She couldn’t do that to him.

No, what she needed was someone who understood exactly what was going on. There was only one person who fit that bill. She dressed swiftly and within two minutes, she’d slipped out the front door into the darkness of a wintery Twelve night. Hurrying across the green, avoiding a pair of Peacekeepers on patrol, she found his house. Stupidly, she was about to knock on the front door when she realized that would wake up his mom and brother and wouldn’t it be fun to try to explain just why his fellow victor was on the Abernathy porch at midnight wanting to chat?

There were no trees in the backyard, unfortunately. Odd folks here in Twelve, she thought. One of the first things her family had done was plant trees to make it home. But she was a confident enough climber with all those years in the trees that she could make it. Quickly she kicked off her shoes and socks for better purchase, stuffing the socks inside the shoes and then tying the laces together and hanging them around her neck. Hauling herself up onto the porch rail and then onward, she made the climb. It was only sitting crouched outside one window, shivering in the cold, that she really hoped she’d picked the right room rather than his brother’s or an empty spare. She knew he’d given his mom the master bedroom. This room was the one closest to the stairs, closest to escape—the same one she’d chosen in her own house.

Rapping lightly on the window with her left hand, keeping a grip with her other hand, she just hoped she’d wake him up without anyone else overhearing, or before she lost her balance on the steep roof. The Capitol might be a little pissed if one of their precious victors didn’t survive the Victory Tour and got found in Haymitch Abernathy’s backyard with a broken neck. Snow would probably be really pissed he hadn’t gotten to sell her body even once.

~~~~~~~~~~

The thumping woke him and he sat up with a gasp, instinctively reaching for the knife on his bedside table. The lamp still emitted a steady, comforting glow. Scanning the room suspiciously, he saw nothing there. Shaking his head, he was about to lay back down and try to go to sleep when he heard it again, towards the window. Fully awake as he was, it was no figment of a nightmare-fogged brain.

 _Mutts, there’s mutts outside and they’re coming to kill you,_ his mind gibbered in panic. He stood there in indecision for a minute, part of him wanting to just retreat out of the room and hope they went away. But there was nowhere to hide. If they were here, they were going to come for him eventually and find him. Slowly approaching the window, knife at the ready, he threw aside the curtain and just about screamed in terror as he saw a dark figure crouched there.

“Idiot!” There was a panicked voice he could hear even through the window. “It’s me, lemme in, I can’t keep holding on like this!” The urgency in her voice made him jump to do as she asked.

“Johanna?” he managed stupidly, hurrying to get the window opened for her. She clambered in gracelessly, landing in a heap on the floor, rubbing her arm muscles furiously as he closed the window again, shivering at the chilly winter air.

Looking up at him, she said with a scowl, “I was knocking on that window for five minutes! And I’m half-frozen to boot.”

“What the hell are you doing at my window anyway, rocks-for-brains?” he snapped back. Just then he realized that he was standing there with the knife still clutched in his hand, ready to attack and kill. Seeing that she looked at him no differently for it, chewing him out rather than reacting in terror, he felt an odd urge like he could just weep in sheer relief at the utter normalcy of it. She wasn’t awkward at how weird and frightening he’d become, and she definitely wasn’t afraid. She treated the person he’d become like he was just another boy to her.

Seeing her shivering, he sighed impatiently and got a blanket, throwing it to her, and digging for a pair of clean socks in his drawer to give her as well, since he could see the boots on the floor looked wet with snow. “You’d think you were some ignorant little twit from down in the south districts,” he couldn’t resist mocking her because it was better than standing there in uncomfortable silence, “climbing around people’s roofs without a coat or shoes in December. You’re lucky they cleared the snow off for filming today.”

“Oh, shut up, Haymitch,” she said, huddling up on his bed with the socks and blanket both on. Eventually her teeth stopped chattering. He sat down beside her, careful to give her plenty of space.

“So seriously,” he said again, “ _what_ are you doing here?” Listening, he felt relieved that he didn’t hear any stirring down the hall from his ma’s room, or Ash’s. What little ruckus they’d caused just now hadn’t woken either of those two up.

Chafing her hands together, she glanced at him and said, “I…came to say I think we should have sex.”

Staring at her, he wondered if he’d heard that quite right. “Well, it ain’t the most romantic offer I’ve ever gotten.”

“Think about it,” she said impatiently. “You don’t have a girlfriend anymore. I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Wait, you had one?” he asked in confusion.

“We broke up,” she muttered. That was all she had to say. He thought he knew just what had happened, probably much the same as him and Briar. “Anyway—I mean, it’s going to happen when we go to the Capitol for the Games. Blight made that clear. But some Capitol jerk doesn’t have to be the first.” She glanced back at him, brows suddenly furrowed thoughtfully. “Uh, well, that’s assuming you haven’t…”

Feeling the flare of heat in his face at the embarrassment of her sudden interest in the status of his virginity, he said between his teeth, “No, Johanna, I haven’t. I reckon it’s about the same in Seven. Not until you’re eighteen and safe from the reaping.” She nodded quickly at that.

They sat side by side, not looking at each other, not saying anything. He felt curiously empty just then. Six months ago he’d been a boy with a girl he loved more than anything, and if the life he could expect would be difficult, at least it had been his. Right now he sat there knowing he was pretty much a Capitol puppet, with a girl proposing they screw each other out of practical considerations. This was his life now. 

“Hey, whatever, it’s not like you love me,” she said, knees drawn up to her chest with the blanket tucked in tight around her shoulders, her feet poking out from the tent of it with his socks too big for her and forming baggy wrinkles. She didn’t quite meet his eyes in the lamplight, and something in him responded to sensing that she was equally awkward and vulnerable, as tough and matter-of-fact as she pretended to be right now. “I know that, all right? We don’t need to pretend anything with each other, you and me.”

No, he didn’t love Johanna, not the fierce and deep way he’d loved Briar, without any reserve or hesitation. The wisest thing he’d done since he got back was to finally have the guts to step back and try to save years of friendship before even that frayed and then snapped against all his sudden dangerous jagged edges. Briar deserved a hell of a lot more than what she got back from the arena, limping along the years with both of them trying to pretend that he was the same as he had been. 

At least Johanna understood all the ways he was messed up, and the guilty pressing need to somehow just _be OK_ wasn’t there. With her he could be himself and know that she could take it, because she’d been right there for the suffering and the starving and the thirst and the terror and the killing.

“No,” he said, reaching out and carefully putting a hand on her shoulder, slow and steady so she didn’t startle, “I’m tired of pretending. But look, I trust you. You’re my friend. Trusting…that’s a hell of a lot harder now than falling in love, isn’t it?” She was right—here was one person who knew him and with whom he could be honest, both about Capitol lies and about how much of a mess he really was. 

His heart ached for the loss of that youthful hope and love, not knowing the value of them until it was far too late. But they had belonged to the child he’d been. What had come back from the arena had to focus on how to face harsh realities and accept them, keep his mouth shut and keep people safe, rather than simply mourn what might have been. 

She was right. Better to steal this and have it at least somewhat on their terms before being forced into constant submission. It wasn’t love, but given what their lives would be like in the Capitol, he wouldn’t reject the value of trust and caring. Maybe he would have gotten to this same idea himself in time, once he’d gotten over his shattered boyish dreams, but he was thankful she’d managed to pick herself up first and come to him. They would be there for each other in this, just as they had in the arena. Perhaps both of them would suffer in silence to keep their people safe, but now they each had someone who would try to keep them safe as well.

So he leaned in, leaned down, and kissed her. It didn’t feel nearly as odd as he feared it might, because this was Johanna, not a stranger. He felt her leaning into it, hesitantly at first, and then more and more eager, the kiss turning from that first careful exploration into something hotter, greedy and needy. He felt more alive than he had since before Reaping Day. Getting an arm around her waist, he lay down, tugging her with him, side-by-side. That was better, not so much craning their necks.

She threw a leg over his, pressing closer, her hands roaming restlessly as if she couldn’t quite decide where to settle, and it felt so good to let someone this close, someone he could trust himself around. His own hands dived underneath her shirt, seeking the soft warmth of her skin, and she made a tiny moan at that which sent the blood rushing straight from his brain, and the little push of her hips against his didn’t much help that either. 

She’d slept against him in the arena when they both reeked of days of sweat and dirt and stale blood. She’d seen him holding in his own guts and he’d seen her practically holding her arm on, bleeding to death. So after that this seemed almost easy, working buttons and zippers and that damn fiddly bra clasp, but her hands were shaking a bit just like his so that made him feel better.

Skin on skin on his bed, he felt the contact of it through his entire body like a jolt of electricity. For just a moment he was confused at why her eyes, gone dark with desire, were brown rather than grey. But then it cleared and he knew exactly who it was he was with now, and he knew he wouldn’t, couldn’t grieve for the past. The boy who’d have married Briar Wainwright was long gone and he wouldn’t betray Johanna’s trust like that. Her breath was hot in his ear and she rolled over, tugged at his shoulders telling him, “C’mon.”

He would have dawdled more, but her body against his was impatient and demanding and he felt like if he didn’t have her now he was going to die. He let out a breathless laugh at that, thinking it was a stupid thought because he knew what dying felt like, but he chased that away, touching her until she bucked her hips against his hand with every stroke of his fingers and gave another of those insistent sounds, grabbing at him again. 

Not wanting to think but only feel, he stretched out over her, pushing into her as slowly as he could stand even as he wanted to just grab her hips and thrust in deep as he could. She clutched at his shoulders, fingernails digging in a bit. “OK?” he asked, surprised his tongue still worked because the sheer feel of her was too much, he’d had no idea that being inside her would be like this. 

“Too much,” she said, and he looked at her, startled as if she’d somehow read his mind. A smirk crossed her lips. “Oh, whatever,” she joked, “I bet you’re just loving hearing that. I hung out with the boys, I know you like to brag about size.”

He couldn’t help a sheepish grin in return, remembering a few summer days at the pond swimming with Burt and Jonas—Briar hadn’t been there—once they started growing old enough to worry about that kind of stuff. “It’s all right, though?”

“Yeah, just…hang on. Let me get used to it.” She squirmed a little against him, and he bit back a gasp as he just about lost it from that.

“Hold still,” he pleaded, “or I swear this is gonna be over in about ten seconds.”

She looked up at him, her face just inches from his. She gave that grin again that he already understood meant she’d say something outrageous. “So what, between the two of us we just lay here like this the whole night and stare at each other and hope it works eventually? Nah. Let’s just go for it.”

He couldn’t help but laugh and that did it too, and he knew he wasn’t going to last so he promised her, “Next time’s yours, I swear,” not even pausing to think about how he was already planning ahead to a next time. Her legs wrapped around his, pulling him in even deeper, and he was right that it didn’t take him long. But both of them were still laughing so that made it all right.

She pushed on him, nudging him up, grumbling about him being deadweight, and he rolled off of her, sleepy but content. When he finally felt like he could move again, he padded to the bathroom, shivering in the chill night air, and getting a washcloth to clean up.

Coming back, he looked at her in the lamplight, gold skin and ample curves stretched out on his bed without a scrap of shame, feeling her own equally bold gaze on him in return. Now when he lay back down, there was time to linger, to look and to touch.

She had no scars. That didn’t surprise him, because neither did he. Even small childhood mishaps had been erased by the Capitol, making him flawless. “Some days I want to nick myself in the kitchen when I’m cooking with Mom,” she confessed, “just a little scar, you know? Something that’s mine again. So I’m just human again.”

“Yeah.” He understood that all too well. Sometimes he still found himself tracing the path of where the jagged, ugly scar on his stomach ought to be, or where his old scars had been. 

He noticed they’d either waxed or shaved her legs and armpits for the Victory Tour, but they hadn’t yanked off everything like they had with him for the Games. “They wax you entirely before the Games?” he asked with curiosity.

“Yep. You?”

He made a face. “Yeah.”

She looked him over. Not like he had that much chest hair yet or anything like that, but she gave him a smile of amused sympathy. “Ouch.” She reached out and touched his side curiously, tracing it between his hip and his collarbone. “You got taller in a hurry on good food. But it looks like you need to eat more to fill it out.”

The clothes hid it well, neatly tailored as they were, but bare to her eyes he knew he looked rangy, too awkwardly lean for his new height. It was obvious he wasn’t meant to be that slender, like a bit of taffy suddenly stretched. His limbs felt lanky and clumsy, all knobby wrists and knees as they hadn’t caught up to the sudden change either. “They gave me drugs in the hospital,” he admitted roughly. “Said I was too short and they’d try to fix it.” He wondered moodily if they’d cluck their tongues in the Capitol, and maybe they’d give him more drugs to try to correct it and fill him out. Somehow it wouldn’t surprise him. 

“Oh.” There was a flash of anger in her eyes at that, and then sympathy, and that was worse. He didn’t want her to pity him as some kind of Capitol experiment. He had enough people who didn’t know what to do with him. 

So instead he reached out, smoothing his hand over the lush curve of her hip. “Well, you filled out a bit—looks good on you,” he told her, leaning down to kiss her shoulder first, then her right breast, hearing her swift hiss of breath at it. 

This time, they dawdled plenty at it, taking time to touch and kiss and explore. Watching her move over him, her skin flushed in the lamplight, eyes half-closed with pleasure, he thought he’d never seen anything more erotic than that. Warning her to stop for a bit whenever it got too close for him, he bided that time by touching her until he gave her the go-ahead again. It paid off in the end. Hearing a low whimper coming from her, feeling her shudder against him and seeing her startled eyes on his just before she sagged against him, panting into his shoulder, he felt a strange mix of hunger and tenderness. All at once he wanted to hold her close in that moment of helplessness and wanted to hurry up and make her come again just so he could watch her and hear her, and know he’d been the one to make her feel like that. “Johanna,” he said, arms tightening around her, turning his head and kissing her brow because that was what he could reach.

She pushed back just a little, enough so she could look at him. Her whiskey-brown eyes were steady on his. “Call me Hanna,” she told him, leaning down to kiss him, bracing herself up again and rolling her hips against his, letting him know she was ready for him to finish. “That’s what they call me back home.” He knew what intimacy she offered by that, and he wouldn’t take it for granted.

He was pretty sure he said _Hanna_ that time, but he wouldn’t ask her. Lying there in a tangle of limbs afterwards, when they started to shiver from the chill against their sweat-sheened skin, he tugged the covers up over the two of them. Gathering her in close against him, he felt like he could finally go to sleep without fear for the first time in months.

~~~~~~~~~

She just about leaped out of the bed at the touch of a hand on her shoulder, terror running through her like lightning. Of course, the terror quickly faded when her eyes snapped open and she saw Magnolia Abernathy leaning over, shaking Haymitch awake also as she heard his faint groggy moan.

Oh, shit. She’d meant to get dressed and slip back over to the house long before morning, but the sunlight warm on her face told her that not only had she missed that mark, it was late morning to boot. Fear gave way to sheer mortification as she realized Haymitch’s mom had just found the two of them together here in his bedroom—in his bed.

Haymitch must have realized it too because she could feel the sudden tension in his body and how he froze, arm still locked around her waist. “Ma, I can exp—“

Mrs. Abernathy held up a hand to wave him off. “That Minerva Triumph was here at dawn all in a fuss because you weren’t at the house when she came to prep you for the camera crews, Johanna, and well, she marched over here to make sure _you_ were here, Haymitch, and hadn’t been kidnapped in the night by ‘vile criminals’.” The sarcastic tone on her last words told Johanna exactly where Haymitch had gotten it from.

Haymitch was a step ahead of her, clearly, because he cleared his throat and said awkwardly, “She marched in here?”

“Two hours ago. Tried to stop her, of course, but…” The casual shrug said it all. What the Capitol wanted, it would take, and be damned to any resistance from a district person. "Didn’t even wake you two up with the racket. Then she said you two clearly needed your rest and she’d hold off the cameras a few hours.” Johanna felt her cheeks on fire, humiliated somehow by the thought of Minerva Triumph tittering knowingly at her and Haymitch, probably enjoying the gossip potential of it. 

“Ma,” Haymitch tried again, his embarrassment painfully obvious.

“Just get cleaned up and dressed,” she said, almost gently. “Johanna, Blight’s brought some clean things for you.” She held up a bundle of clothes. So Blight knew as well. Shit. But at least she wouldn’t have to scurry across the green in the clothes she’d worn last night. “Breakfast downstairs.” With that, Mrs. Abernathy turned and left them to it, putting Johanna’s clothes on a chair by the door.

Climbing out of bed, shivering at the prickle of chill air on her bare skin as she emerged from under the blankets, she surveyed the heaps of clothes on the floor. Her boots were still by the window where she’d dropped them after the climb up, laces still knotted together. “You can have first shower,” Haymitch mumbled awkwardly. Given what they’d been up to the night before, the sudden shyness she likewise felt was a little strange, but perhaps not so odd as it seemed on first blush. Last night had been their own private moment, shutting out reality and everyone else. Wonderful as that had been, it couldn’t last. Now this morning was the cold light of reality, realizing there was a whole world out there with an opinion about it. Sighing, she padded for the bathroom, feeling that she was a little sore but not bad at all.

Showered and dressed in the clean clothes, borrowing Haymitch’s comb and toothbrush—which felt weirdly intimate—she headed downstairs, wondering if she could just sneak out. It wasn’t like she couldn’t afford to skip a meal these days, and she wasn’t sure she could face it all just yet. But the stair creaked as she hit the third step from the bottom, and she winced, hearing the sound that seemed to echo through the house. “Is that you, Johanna?” Mrs. Abernathy’s voice came from the kitchen. She winced again. 

“Yeah,” she called back wearily, knowing she was caught, and padding towards the kitchen to face the music. Waiting for Haymitch’s mom to tell her that she was a cheap timber tramp—or whatever they called them here in Twelve—and to stay away from her sweet innocent little boy. She could hardly play the innocent. She’d been the one to sneak into his room.

Though when she stepped into the kitchen, stomach growling at the smell of frying sausage, Mrs. Abernathy’s first question was a matter-of-fact, “Did you use anything to make sure you’re not going to end up with a baby out of it?”

Feeling foolish as anything, she mumbled, “No.” Miserable and desperate and caught up in Blight’s revelation as they were, it hadn’t exactly entered into either of their minds last night. She tried to not panic at the thought of that—she couldn’t have a kid now. She thought maybe not ever, not when a victor’s kid was at even more risk of being reaped.

Sighing, Mrs. Abernathy said, “Thought not.” She pushed a blue glass bottle towards Johanna and a spoon. “One spoonful. Now. It tastes like shit, and it’s best taken before you end up in bed with your man, but it’ll still do the trick this morning.”

Obeying, pouring out the thick, dark tonic onto the spoon and recognizing it as something like the bottle her own mom kept in the bathroom, she took the spoonful of it and tried to not gag as the bitter, sharp taste of it coated her tongue. Forcing herself to swallow, she coughed. Mrs. Abernathy laughed softly and handed her a mug of what proved to be tea laced with honey. “Welcome to the joys of being a woman.” Surprisingly, it was said with wry humor, not accusation or mockery.

Sitting there with her fingers wrapped around the mug, hearing the sound of the shower still going upstairs as Haymitch cleaned up, she found she couldn’t meet the woman’s eyes. It got worse when Mrs. Abernathy asked softly, “You love him?”

She couldn’t say the truth, of course. _No, but I trust him, I care about him, more than anyone else I know. Blight told us we’re going to be whored out starting next summer so we figured we’d take back at least this much for ourselves._ But robbed of that explanation, what else could she say that didn’t make her sound like she was just using Haymitch as a quick, meaningless lay? She couldn’t answer honestly, but she couldn’t lie and so she said nothing. But then the words came to her tongue in a rush. “I need him.” That was no lie. She needed him like she needed nothing else and that terrified her even as it was the only thing that made any sense anymore.

Feeling the touch of the other woman’s fingers on hers, callused but gentle, she raised her head and looked up, meeting those silver-grey eyes so like Haymitch’s. “Oh, honey,” Mrs. Abernathy sighed, her face full of what looked like sympathy rather than condemnation. “You know there’s no future in it with him. You’ve got to stick with Seven and he’s got to stay in Twelve.”

“I know,” she whispered, feeling like she wanted to cry, because she knew it all too well. She’d spent the last five months with that fact made plain as anything, because the one person she could talk to and trust was in another district. “I know that.” She clenched her fingers tighter around the mug. “You don’t have to say it, OK? I know you don’t want me hanging around him.”

“It ain’t about that,” and now a sharper note entered Mrs. Abernathy’s voice. “I’ve got nothing against you, Johanna. He’s been the happiest I’ve seen him since he came back from the Games. And I know my boy. He doesn’t take things lightly. If he’s taking you to bed, he loves you.” Johanna froze at that, casual as the words were uttered. “And obviously you love him back.” She shook her head, sighing again, giving Johanna a tight, weary little smile. “No easy thing loving a man you oughtn’t, when you know you can’t have all of him and it can’t last. But sometimes you can’t help what your heart wants.” Johanna wondered at the momentary hint of painful knowledge there—talking about her long-dead husband, perhaps?

“No,” she said, the single word coming out with a dull rasp. She couldn’t help what her heart wanted and would never have—all the things the Games had taken from her, and would keep taking from her.

“Well.” Mrs. Abernathy gave a small shrug. “I’ve got nothing against it. Just…you take that medicine with you,” she pushed the blue bottle towards Johanna, “and take it every day, and don’t you two make me a grandma in a hurry. Maybe you ain’t at risk of the reaping, but you’re both so young yet. And Johanna…” Now she offered a bit of a chuckle. “Tonight, why don’t you just come in the front door like normal folks?”

~~~~~~~~~~

He slunk down the stairs, feeling embarrassed as anything, knowing the panic that of course she’d be disappointed in him. But he might as well face the music, he thought, even as he hesitated, straining to hear the quiet conversation from the kitchen. Ash piped up behind him. “Are you eavesdropping or what?”

Looking back over his shoulder, he muttered, “Shut up, runt,” straightened up, and descended the last few steps.

“Johanna’s here already this morning? Is she your new girlfriend?” Ash asked, making loud smacking kissing noises. His little brother was often far too serious, but when he took it in mind to be a pain in the ass, it was all the more annoying for it.

“Ashford!” His ma’s voice came loud and clear from the kitchen, full of exasperation. “You hush that now.”

Haymitch managed a smirk, even as he wanted to let out a quiet sigh of relief. So Ash didn’t know. “See? Ma’s on my side.” He reached over and ruffled Ash’s hair. Ash scowled and twisted away from it.

He went into the kitchen, ostensibly to help carry the food to the table, but knowing he couldn’t bear to sit there over the meal with the awkwardness of it hanging there. Johanna was in there too, to his surprise, stirring the oatmeal and she and his ma were chatting like they’d known each other for years. 

“Ah, here, Johanna, honey, can you take this to the table?” His ma handed Johanna a pitcher of orange juice. Unthinkable luxury a year ago, given he’d never even had an orange in his life before the Capitol. He’d still only had it once or twice in the months since because it seemed like such a sin to flaunt it in front of the district that the Abernathys could now have things like that. But of course with the Capitol camera crew and the escorts in town for the Victory Tour, they had to have all the comforts of an ample meal. 

Johanna moved past him with the pitcher, and their eyes met for a moment. She gave him a brief smile and then headed towards the dining room. His ma didn’t give him a chance to get started on whatever ramble was bubbling up in him, ready to burst free. “She’s a nice girl,” she said, taking up the spoon Johanna had left in the oatmeal pot. “Just be careful, but I told her that she can stay with you these nights she’s here in Twelve.”

Startled at that matter-of-fact pronouncement, he blurted, “Why?”

“Because you’re happy,” she said simply, reaching out and touching his face softly. “If it’s her that’s done that, and you make her happy, then go with it for as long as you can.”

“Thanks,” he murmured, throat suddenly tight. To know she wasn’t disappointed or upset by him meant more than he could say right then.

“I believe the escorts are eating on the train, but Blight ought to be over—“ The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” Haymitch said hastily. It seemed like he was having a good run of it this morning, so he figured he might as well continue.

When he answered the door, Blight eyed him with a mixture of curiosity and exasperation. “We’re going to have a talk after breakfast, us three,” he informed Haymitch in a tone that brooked no argument.

So after breakfast, with the excuse of walking them to the train for their prep for the day’s camera work, Blight made the trip go slowly. They dawdled going down the hill from the Village, Haymitch pretending to point stuff out to the two of them. “You two,” Blight said without preamble, “certainly had a busy night. The escorts know, by the way.”

“We know,” Johanna said with a weary tone to her voice. 

Blight grunted and said, “Yeah, OK, then Minerva came pounding on my door to inform me, all atwitter, that our two little victors apparently had such a _deep and heartfelt romance_ going on they couldn’t wait for a passionate reunion.”

Haymitch made a face, trying not to laugh, aghast and amused all at once. “Did she seriously say it like that?”

Blight’s mouth twitched up in a slight smile. “Oh yeah.” He clapped his hands together, the sound muffled by his brown leather gloves, and Haymitch noticed a scuff on his right thumb. “You two are either diabolically clever or stupidly lucky,” he informed them. “I mean…shit, you’ve hit on the one thing that might make it go easier on you in the long run.”

“Huh?” Johanna said, and Haymitch was about as confused as her.

“This can’t stay under wraps with the escorts knowing you two f—uh, slept together. So you’re going to be a couple now, at least for the present. You noticed some people already wondered if you were. And some of the people who would have bought a night with either of you will be reluctant to make you cheat on your dearly beloved boyfriend or girlfriend, whose life you so gallantly saved in the arena.” He shrugged, explaining, “You’re dating some nameless district rat, they wouldn’t care, and even a fellow victor, they wouldn’t necessarily care. But this is solid as oak, see—you’re new victors, you saved each other’s asses in the arena, you’re already bound together by that. This is a story they’ll love.”

Even as he felt the trepidation of feeling like Blight was casually strong-arming him into claiming Johanna as his girlfriend when they’d just tried to comfort each other, Haymitch noticed something. “You said it would take care of some.”

“Oh, some of them won’t give a shit that you’re spoken for, and some of them will even enjoy the naughtiness of it even more. But I’d say it’ll cut demand by half?”

So it was only a partial reprieve, and the notion of having to play it up for the cameras too sat ill with him. It wasn’t like he didn’t care for her—he wouldn’t have done what he did otherwise. Memories of last night played through his head, the way she looked at him, the sounds she made, the sensation of her hands strong on his shoulders urging him on—the feel of her. He closed his eyes, trying to put all of it away for the moment and focus. He couldn’t afford to dwell on that just now. “So we have to claim we’re dating.”

“You can hardly claim you fucked each other just to thwart Snow selling off your virginity,” Blight pointed out. Seeing their expressions, he let out a snort of amusement, brushing the snowflakes off his oak-brown hair. “Yeah, I may not be as sharp an axe as you two kids, but I’m not dumb. Trust me on this—given half the chance, I’d have done exactly the same. But the story covers that up. So for the Victory Tour, you’re a couple. I’d suggest you continue it through your first Games too, to keep some of the buyers at bay. But after that? If either of you meets someone, you’re free to say you’ve realized the ‘separate districts’ thing just won’t work, but you’ll always be good friends.”

It wasn’t like he had anyone here waiting on him. So it would be a month of pretending here and then another month at the Games. He had the heavy feeling already that he would never meet another girl and need to be set free from this pact, but maybe she would.

“All right,” Johanna said, looking at the two of them. After the revelation yesterday that one misstep could be fatal to people they cared about, neither of them was in a hurry to discount the advice of the one man who actually knew what the hell was going on and how to try to play this. “Blight, you tell us what to do and we’ll do it.”


	4. Chapter 4

After the familiar-seeming snowdrifts of Twelve, the heat of Eleven, like a bright May day even in December, caught Johanna by surprise. They’d dressed her in a sleeveless green dress patterned in tiny flowers. More flowers were woven into the coronet braids of her hair, the little bell shapes of lily-of-the-valley in white and yellow and pink. They were real, filling the air around her with their subtle scent. They’d probably come from here in Eleven, she realized suddenly—grown in some field or greenhouse and then killed off suddenly just to adorn one girl’s hair for a few hours. A girl who’d survived when four of their own kids hadn’t. It seemed like flaunting that fact, and suddenly all Blight’s words about acting quiet and gracious and respectful made even more terrible sense than they had before. She’d known that muted anger standing there watching some victor heading for the Capitol, mouthing platitudes about how brave and wonderful Seven’s tributes had been. 

Being on the other side of the equation now wasn’t easy at all. If she were honest with herself, she didn’t know a thing about any of Eleven’s tributes. They were just faces in the sky to her, and faces momentarily glimpsed in training or on Caesar’s stage. She hadn’t allied with them and she hadn’t killed them. 

Resisting the urge to touch her hair nervously, she remembered that lily-of-the-valley was poison as well as lovely and sweetly scented. Her being garlanded in something beautiful but deadly seemed all too appropriate right now, given what she’d become. She wondered if the Capitol had chosen that deliberately, or if they were even smart enough to come up with that kind of irony.

“Places, victors!” Honoria trilled at them, walking in a few steps ahead of Minerva, wearing a fur stole, of all things, in this sheer heat. “Haymitch, stop fussing with your tie, you’ve made such a mess of it!”

Haymitch scowled as Honoria grabbed his black-and-silver striped tie and pulled it tight once again, clucking about what a bumpkin he was all the while. Johanna saw the moment that he froze, tense and wary, at the sudden invasion of his space, how his fists clenched by his sides as he endured it. The moment Honoria’s back was turned, as she and Minerva went to go see if the camera crew was ready, she saw him defiantly yank the tie off entirely and stuff it in his pocket. “It’s too stuffy and I don’t even know how to tie these stupid things,” he muttered at her.

She felt his hand brush hers and reflexively, she grabbed hold, hanging on. She looked over at him, this boy she’d always be tied to as her fellow victor, her first lover, her best friend now. They’d dressed him in black again, and her in green, just like they had with their entire on-camera wardrobes for Twelve, just like they’d been for their victory interview and their coronation with Snow.

She had the suspicion if she bothered to check the wardrobe racks for the entire trip they were full of his black and her green. Everything at every stop, from the speeches at the Justice Building to dinners with the mayors, would inevitably remind the entire country of a Twelve boy and a Seven girl. They were from separate places and the Capitol wanted to emphasize that. The clothing spoke eloquently enough. They were never meant to match and be presented as one, even as the dual victors of the Quell.

Somehow that thought depressed her almost as much as the thought of facing that crowd, everyone pretending it was just fine when they all knew it was actually fake. “Maybe this will get easier in time,” she suggested hopefully.

“You can get used to most anything that’s forced on you often enough, I suppose,” he said darkly, as they heard the _click-clock_ of Minerva’s six-inch heels clopping against the hardwood floor of the reception car where they were waiting. “Showtime,” he said with a sigh and a momentary slump of his shoulders. “Let’s smile for ‘em. You know we’ll be on camera all through the farming tour.”

They went and she nodded and pretended to be fascinated by rice fields and flower farms and peach orchards, listened to workers with Eleven’s slow sultry drawl talk about other regions of the district they couldn’t visit because of the pressures of time, and none of them would meet her eyes. 

Haymitch plucked a ripe peach from one of the worker’s baskets and handed it to her and she laughed, taking a bite and pressing the fruit back into his hand so he could have one too. The sweetness of the juice was somehow bitter as gall on her tongue from her instinctive terror. She knew he must be as inwardly horrified at it as her, but the cameramen had suggested this playful little romantic gesture. Neither of them would have done it, knowing as they did the penalty of stealing from the Capitol, and doing it so openly on camera. But the Capitol made the rules. 

They made their tour and headed to the Justice Building to do their duty. It was awful, watching all those faces staring up at them as they mouthed their platitudes about Eleven’s wonderful welcome and how they’d been so impressed with the workers and the farmers.

She claimed she wasn’t feeling well after that, that she was tired from the exertion, and that they were heading back to the train to lie down. As if a simple walk would ever exhaust her like that, but Minerva fussed and told her to go have a nap.

Instead, Haymitch grabbed her wrist and the two of them made their way through the Justice Building, trying to find somewhere quiet, somewhere private. Somewhere away from the eyes and the microphones—all she needed was just a few minutes to rant or scream or cry or whatever, and she could recover and go to that dinner smiling like she was having the time of her life.

Finally they ended up climbing all the way into the dome of the building, Haymitch leading the way through whatever instincts he apparently possessed, until they kicked the hatch shut and stood there among old paintings and furniture draped with canvas drop-cloths. “I don’t think anyone’s been up here in years,” Haymitch said, turning around and glancing at the assorted cast-off junk of District Eleven.

“I don’t know how we’re gonna get through this,” she said, watching the drift of dust motes sparkling in the sunlight, going over to the window and looking down on the people below. They looked so small now, so distant. She couldn’t see their faces, studiedly blank from years and years of hardship and grief and disappointment. She almost wished they’d stared with hatred. It would have been easier.

He came up behind her, speaking up as he did so to warn her, and she appreciated that. “I don’t know either. But we’ve gotta manage it somehow. Ten more districts to go, and the Capitol too. We can’t break down now. Too much at stake.” But he sounded as uncertain and world-weary as her. She felt like they were already entering survival mode, enduring the horrors and praying it would end before it killed them. They hadn’t even gotten to a district of a kid that they’d killed, and that thought sent panic through her like wildfire.

Needing to feel something, anything beyond her own desperation and fear, she turned to him. She was grateful that he apparently felt it too as he stepped forward and slipped his arms around her. When he kissed her, taking her down with him onto a stack of tatty old velvet curtains, she could still taste the lingering traces of peach juice on his lips, and this time, the taste was sweet.

~~~~~~~~~~

District Ten passed by mercifully quickly, with being filmed at an impromptu horseback riding lesson. Considering both of them admitted they only had experience with some mule carts, it was a somewhat daunting prospect. But after Eleven, at least they knew something of what to expect. Not to say it was all that much easier, just that it was slightly more familiar now. Ten was such a huge district they barely got to see anything, but he knew they didn’t much want to act like tour guides to a pair of foreign kids who’d survived, when four families in the district were still thinking about their children they’d buried just months ago. So they played out their awful, script-perfect roles, the victors and the district people, and he just hoped they didn’t hate him and Johanna too much. Though he suspected they wearily resented them and that was worse.

He ended up in her bedroom about ten minutes after they finished dinner. She didn’t ask or question, just greeted him with a greedy, needy kiss and yanked on the hem of his shirt, pulling it up and getting her hands on his skin. 

There was no such thing as the fact of their sleeping together being any kind of secret. He knew Blight and Minerva and Honoria knew exactly what they’d gotten up to in the dome of the Justice Building in Eleven, rumpled and smelling like sex as they’d inevitably been when they came back downstairs. He’d heard Honoria mutter impatiently about teenage hormones as she hurried them back towards the train to get ready for dinner. It was only later that he hoped nobody in Eleven figured it out and thought he didn’t care at all about their dead tributes or their suffering, and that he was just a stupid boy whose biggest concern was sneaking off to get underneath his girlfriend’s skirt.

He knew all that and knew if he wasn’t careful, he really would look like a randy idiot driven only by his cock, but every time he told himself to get a grip it didn’t work. Lost in the moment, lost in her arms, he couldn’t care because he needed her too much and it was the only time anything seemed right. Of course they knew the entire train had to be bugged; Blight had warned them as much. But he didn’t care even if Snow was sitting in his office jerking off to the audio right now because all the mattered was her, the taste of her skin and the feel of her touch and the knowledge that he was safe and not alone. Afterwards, he thought about going for a repeat, wanting those wonderful moments of mingled intimacy and oblivion all over again, but it was no good because his eyes were already drifting shut. She curled up against him. Even though he knew it was snowing again outside as they traveled through northern Panem, the train’s thermostat kept it warm, and that plus her body heat was almost too much given the sweat they’d worked up. 

But he didn’t have the heart or the desire to push her away, so he just flipped back the covers a bit to help them cool off. She got her head tucked up under his chin, and he held her tight, feeling a little like a child clutching a security blanket. She sleepily murmured something wordless, and he closed his eyes and fell asleep to the steady dual rhythms of the train on the tracks and her heartbeat. 

In District Nine, Blight seemed distracted, and to be honest, Haymitch didn’t see the man much. But after learning to identify corn and soybean and wheat fields and driving a tractor, the additional challenges began. Vetch Kirren’s father stood there at the Justice Building, one lone figure compared to the clusters for the other three families. There was no wife and no other kids there with him. Looking at the tired, sun-weathered, grief-ravaged face of the man there in his faded jeans and old coat and scuffed work boots, his dirty blond hair going bald on top, Haymitch couldn’t help but wonder what unspoken tragedies accompanied that fact. But he read it loud and clear. Vetch had been all the man had left and now he was dead. The weight of all-consuming sorrow borne alone clearly crushed him harder than the other families who stood there trying to be stoic, supporting each other in that grief. 

It tugged at something in him, and he realized it was the fear that he too would always be alone in dealing with the Games. He had no fellow victor to help handle the task of trying to mentor two kids who he knew had little hope, every single year. He had already started to think that no girl in Twelve should ever shoulder him as a husband, given what a burden and a risk he would be. Maybe he’d always be alone, but for Ash and his ma. Staring at Vetch’s father in his unbearable grieving solitude, it terrified him. 

Of course neither of them got a chance to actually talk to the man privately. All they got was a few seconds onstage to address him for the nation to hear. It was all platitudes. _Vetch fought bravely_ was true. For an exhausted, dehydrated, half-starved kid, he’d given it all he had. But in the end he and his ally Lea had just been two poor district kids, the sort that died fast every year. The only difference between those two and him and Johanna was that they had gotten sponsors by making those Career kills, while Vetch and Lea hadn’t.

 _We’re sorry for your loss._ They could say that, and they did. They could regret the fact, but not the action that led to it. The one thing they couldn’t say was _I’m sorry I killed him._ That would mean regrets. That would mean that being forced to kill a boy from Nine, who’d had hopes and dreams that didn’t involve being starved and sickened and finally stabbed to death on national television, was somehow wrong. That would mean that the Games that made it all happen were wrong. That would mean that the Capitol that demanded and hysterically celebrated those Games was wrong. He might be new to this business of knowing when he needed to keep his mouth shut and when he needed to lie through his teeth, but he wasn’t dumb enough to not realize that.

They repeated it in Eight with Lea Chase’s family. Her ma, pa, a brother and a sister, all of whom had that same caramel-colored skin and green-gold eyes. He tried to not think about the way her eyes had widened in shock and pain at the fatal blow.

He knew that he and Johanna continually got a little less discreet thanks to their sheer miserable desperation. The television broadcast pictures of them kissing in shadowed corners and holding hands constantly. He was just thankful they hadn’t actually caught the two of them half-dressed or something like that, but he knew guiltily that he couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t happen someday if it all got to be too much. Blight was actually pleased, said that it looked good for their romantic story. The newscasters were all atwitter about the “budding romance” between the two victors, though as they readily pointed out, their differing district origins would make things very difficult. 

Honoria clucked at him by the time they arrived in Seven, plucking at his slightly loose trouser waistband with claw-like fingernails decorated with tiny crystals. “You need to eat more, you’re losing weight. If you keep this up the clothes will hang on you like that nasty baggy stuff Terricia made, and Taffy did such a lovely job fitting it to you so it’d flatter you.” Whoever the hell Taffy was, Haymitch thought she and her careful fitting of his entirely black and dark grey clothes could go get stuffed. Then Honoria shook her head. “You also need to sleep more. I realize you may be giddy from the first blush of love with Johanna, but you can’t stay up all night, pleasant as it may be.” Her knowing chuckle made his skin crawl. “The bags under your eyes, Haymitch—ugh! I’ll tell the preps to keep special notice of that.”

At least Seven would be a respite from the families of kids he’d killed, though the idea of facing Johanna’s parents wasn’t much better. They obviously knew by now that she was probably sleeping with him. The newscasts with their sly discussions about eager teenage romance made it more than clear.

“How much trouble are we in with your family?” he asked her the night before they got there, keeping his voice pitched barely above a murmur.

Her head was next to his on the pillow, and her eyes looked troubled for a moment. “I don’t know. Your mom took it so much better than I expected.” Her voice went a bit thick as she said, “They love me but I don’t think they know exactly how to deal with me right now. I’m not…I don’t know how to…”

“You don’t know how to be their little girl anymore,” he finished it, gently as he could. He knew that her life hadn’t been easy by any means, but with two parents and a capable older brother, compared to his childhood that forced him to grow up almost as soon as he was old enough to be aware, she’d been allowed to be a bit more of a child. That girl that broke down at the reaping was gone now, all the softness and childishness burned away. All that was left was the forced youthfulness the Capitol wanted them to fake.

She nodded, looking about ready to cry, but then she angrily wiped the back of her hand over her eyes, a determined expression coming over her face. Then she reached for him, kissing him fiercely, pushing him onto his back. He understood that well enough. She didn’t want to think about it.

~~~~~~~~~~

Thirty seconds after the cameras rolled, she didn’t want to be there in her own home district. Not the way they did it, with all the pageantry and fanfare that set her so much apart and made it clear to everyone that she wasn’t just another Seven lumberjack anymore. They brought her home and they presented her with her new boyfriend Haymitch and made it clear that she belonged to the victors and to him—or more truthfully, to the Capitol’s ideal of how things were—than to her own people.

But her mom’s hug of welcome was warm, and she closed her eyes, letting herself feel comforted and safe for just a moment. Haymitch politely shook hands with everyone, Johanna carefully watching all the while to make sure neither of her parents nor Bern shunned him. Heike was reserved out of shyness, but Johanna wasn’t worried, as she didn’t have a judgmental bone in her body. It was all very polite and proper.

He was shorter than most any other man or boy there in that crowd. That startled her. Maybe he seemed to loom so large in her mind because of his sheer presence, and how much she’d come to depend on him as her partner in this. She’d noticed he was shorter than Blight, but that was just one man. True enough, he was bigger than her and maybe that difference had made him seem larger to her as well. But she could see that even forced up to five ten, he was a few inches shorter than her father, and while she knew full well from seeing him naked that his build would eventually broaden out, he wouldn’t be cedar-solid like many Seven men. But that didn’t matter. A big strong brown forest bear was what the Capitol always showed as being scary as hell, but every Seven kid knew that the smaller black-furred honey bears, with their cunning and their agility and ability to climb trees, were perhaps even more dangerous than pure power. Haymitch might not be tall, but he was more than tough enough to bear the burdens put on him. 

“We have a spare bedroom in our house,” Petra Mason said politely, brown eyes on Haymitch as she smiled at him. “We’d be glad if you’d stay there.”

That was kind of them, though she wondered if the Capitol had nudged them to do it. But otherwise the situation for Haymitch meant staying on the train, being alone in one of the empty houses in the Glade, or Blight or Cedrus volunteering some space in their home. But this played along nicely with their friendship and supposed romance, didn’t it?

She slipped her arm through his as they walked, needing that little bit of contact as she felt like a wall was growing between her and the rest of the district, defiantly glad that she could do it in front of the cameras now. This was what they wanted and it was what she wanted, so she’d damn well give it to them.

Heike had to head back to school and Bern to the carpentry shop for the afternoon. So that left her, Haymitch, and her parents alone in the house. Wincing at the awkwardness of it, she wasn’t surprised when her dad invited Haymitch to the parlor in a pleasant but still no-nonsense tone. Gunnar Mason didn’t even have to raise his voice to make an impression. She looked at the two of them, the stocky middle-aged lumberjack with his sheer size and quiet confidence and the half-grown coal miner boy with his fierce energy and shrewdness, both of them having too much presence to seem like they could share the room. She wondered wryly if two bears could share the same space out in the forest, thinking it was unlikely.

Staring at the two of them disappearing and then back at her mom, Johanna blurted, “I’m gonna just go re—“

Petra gave a soft snort of amusement. “I was seventeen once, Hanna. I listened in to my dad reading Gunnar the riot act. I’m sure if you stand outside the parlor you can overhear them.”

Elated that her mom was on her side, she hugged her fiercely before she could think better of it. Hearing a sudden catch in her mom’s breath, she looked at her with concern. “Are you OK?”

“That’s the first time you’ve hugged me since the Games without looking like you’re afraid of something,” she said softly, sounding on the verge of tears. 

Feeling a lump in her throat for all the things she couldn’t explain because she didn’t have the words, let alone the things in the future she would have to keep secret, she held on for another minute. _I’m sorry,_ she thought. They deserved so much better than what they got back from the arena. 

But at least the hot dark flame of her sheer anger at the Capitol for turning her into that murderous thing saved her from descending into that bleak place where she might start to think things like how much better off they might be without her. She’d been lost in the blackness before, drowning helplessly. The thought of what might happen if that flame went out terrified her, and so she made sure to keep it well fed. Anger was at least a kind of passion, and it kept her will and mind focused. It burned off the terror and the misery, and so it was with a calmer feeling that she squeezed her mom one last time and let go. “Thanks,” she said softly.

There was a parlor door, but her dad hadn’t closed it. They still hadn’t gotten used to this house yet and all its many rooms and all those superfluous doors. Back at Sawyer’s Creek, at the old house, the only doors had been to the front entrance, the bedrooms and the bathroom for at least a modicum of privacy, and the pantry to help keep animals out. It had taken her the better part of a month to remember her alarmingly huge closet with its seemingly-unthinkable number of clothes had a door she could close. 

So she thanked her lucky stars her dad hadn’t thought of it. She scrunched herself as close to the wall as she could, right up against the pale blue paint, breathing shallowly so hopefully she wouldn’t be overheard, keeping as still as she possibly could. She had to strain just a little to hear them, but it wasn’t so bad.

“…recognize my daughter owes you her life. That we also owe you for that.”

“Everyone was watching those Games—mandatory, ain’t they, last I checked? They saw it that she saved my hide too in that clearing, Mister Mason.”

There was a deep acknowledging grunt from her father and he said bluntly, “That wasn’t what I meant, boy. Seems to me that no matter what Caesar and Claudius like to say now, you didn’t deliberately leap in to save her. You were thinking things over, got caught by those Career kids, and made the best of the situation, is that so?” 

A long pause and Haymitch finally mumbled, “Yes.”

“That’s fine. I wouldn’t expect you, or anyone else, to risk yourself against those three—especially for a girl not of your own district. There’s nobility and there’s stupidity. You both fought to save your own lives and managed to help each other out in the bargain. But when they were all dead…how easy would it have been for you to slit her throat? She was weak. Starved. Dehydrated. She couldn’t have fought you. It would have been a simple way to take out one more tribute. People know well enough in the end only one survives and there’s no room for mercy. The fact it turned out different this time doesn’t change what you, or she, would have known then.”

“I couldn’t,” Haymitch protested, a tone of mingled anguish and anger entering his voice. “I just couldn’t, OK? What are you trying to pull, anyway? You want me to say I was just looking for the right chance to kill her all those days we were keeping each other alive? I wasn’t!” Hearing the sound of his footfalls, she backed away, but that was silly because she’d only made it about three feet by the time Haymitch hit the door.

Right about that time, her father’s gruff voice rose to say, “You do love her, don’t you?”

Standing there, half in the room and half out, Haymitch’s gaze rose to meet hers, “Yes, I love Johanna,” he said simply, but he was looking at her as he said it, and she knew he was telling her this, not her father. From the look on his face, the way his whole heart and all the longing and pain and need was right there in his eyes, she knew he wasn’t just playing along with Blight’s ideas. 

He loved her, and it cracked at the thin veneer of denial she’d kept in place as self-preservation. All those months that she’d wished he were there in Seven, and those nights here on the Tour when he made her feel something besides her own rage or misery. It wasn’t just about fucking around, having some defiance and pleasure while they could before Snow got a collar on them firmly next Games. He was the only one that genuinely knew the person she’d become, the only one she trusted to let him so close to see every flaw and every fuck-up, and to still want her anyway—to find her worthy of desire, of trust, of love. He accepted her and wasn’t confused or afraid like everyone else. She loved him and she needed him, and the two seemed to twine and meld together until they were one single, inseparable passion. 

Hope and agony tore at her all at once and she could see it on his face too as she reached out and laid her hand over where his rested on the doorframe. He trembled at it, as if he couldn’t bear even that little bit of contact, his silver-grey eyes still burning into hers.

Haymitch’s fingers brushed over hers, clutching for just a moment, then he let her go with obvious reluctance. “Why the riot act, sir?” he said, still not looking back over his shoulder or turning. “Granted, my pa died when I was young so I couldn’t exactly get advice there, but I’ve heard enough from men with daughters. You don’t think Johanna and I haven’t been through enough that we really don’t need to play along with your little ‘overprotective daddy’ script like she’s an ignorant kid?”

“You’re the boy that’s sleeping with my daughter,” her dad retorted sharply. “The one she loves too, if I don’t miss my mark.”

“Fine. I get it. Break her heart and you break my everything.” Haymitch’s voice rose, the edge of weary bitterness far too ancient for a boy who was even a few months younger than her. “Let’s be blunt. You couldn’t do a single damn thing to protect her in the arena, sir. You can’t protect her from the Games in the years to come. We’re not kids anymore. Even the law pretty much treats us like adults now.”

“I’m still her father,” now her dad’s voice was rising too, “you think I don’t care?”

“So what? Time to tell me to back off? She’s the _one good thing_ I’ve got, damn you, I’m not giving that up just because—what? Coal miner’s brat ain’t good enough for you?” 

“You think this ends well?” Gunnar Mason’s voice went dangerously soft, almost a bear-like growl. “I like you, don’t mistake me. You seem like a good boy. Better than most anyone I’ve seen go into that arena and come out alive. If you were born here I’d be glad to have you calling on her. But you’re not. You think it’ll really be enough for you to see her for a few weeks of the year, at the Games that’ll always remind you both? She could have a life here, marry and raise a family away from that. Can you give her that? You should go home, Haymitch, and find yourself a nice girl. And you should do it and have a life that’s not tied to that arena. All you two will ever do is wait for each other and then remind each other of the Games when you are together. Is that really the life you want?” She finally understood her father’s defensiveness then. He still wanted her to move beyond the arena. He wanted his Hanna back. Closing her eyes, pressing her forehead against the cool surface of the wall, she gritted her teeth and stuffed down the tears for the parents who only wanted the best for her, and how they just didn’t understand how it had all changed so much that was impossible. 

Haymitch’s voice cracked painfully. “It’s more than I want from anyone else.” He gave an odd, jerky laugh. “And you don’t get it. That arena, it’s what we are now, whether you pretend otherwise or not.”

“I could forbid you from seeing her. But she’ll probably just sneak down to your room or on that train or whatever. And once you leave here for Six, not a damn thing I have to say makes any difference, does it?”

Haymitch finally turned back to him. “No. It doesn’t. But I’d much rather have you and Mrs. Mason on my side for it than catching Johanna in the middle between us. If she ever finds someone else here in Seven, trust me, I won’t kick up a fuss.”

“Fine.” He sighed audibly. “Damn, why couldn’t you have been from Seven?”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, sir,” Haymitch said wryly, exiting the parlor, giving her a small, almost sad smile as he passed.

Rhus knocked on the door fifteen minutes later. “My mom asked me to bring your plate from the steaks you sent and she sent you some bread,” he muttered, scratching his cheek idly and not quite meeting her eyes.

She took the plate, knowing beneath the checkered dishcloth there was a loaf of the familiar dark sour bread. It was still hot from the oven, because the plate was warm against her fingers. Really, it was stupid—her mom could make bread just as well as Franzi Amsell could, and they could buy good bread made with white flour from Valentiner’s bakery now too. They didn’t need gifts. But she knew the Amsells, or anyone else, didn’t want to just constantly accept charity, and as Head Crimson had told them, it would be dangerous too for her to just start handing stuff out anyway. This let everyone save face and if the Masons’ gifts out to their former neighbors were more frequent and of better quality than the ones they received, that was as it ought to be. 

“Thanks,” she said gingerly. She waited, wondering if Rhus had more to say.

He stuffed his cold-reddened hands in his pockets. She could still remember the shape of those hands, the feel of his fingers on her skin a few months ago out in the woods. But it was a distant thing, almost as if it had been years ago, especially compared to the immediacy and intensity of memories of Haymitch. “Were the newscasters right? Was it always him, even when you were with me?” he asked awkwardly, hazel eyes searching hers pleadingly.

She shook her head, feeling miserable at how obviously she’d hurt him. Maybe she should have never said she’d go walking with him, never kissed him, never let him unbutton her shirt. But she’d needed something to try to not fall apart and to move forward, and she’d thought he might be it. “Haymitch and I…just happened,” she told him, hearing the rough edge in her voice.

He nodded quickly, decisively. “OK.” He chewed his lip for just a moment. “I hope you’re happy, Hanna,” and she wasn’t sure whether that was genuine or resentful, because before she could reply or look at his expression he was already turning away from her. She watched him walk down the footpath towards the road out of the Glade, his shoulders hunched up in his old coat, hurrying away, and she felt a panicked sense like she was watching him walk out of her life. It worried her that she thought that might actually be the case.

~~~~~~~~~~

In some ways, knowing the Masons liked him personally but wished he’d leave Johanna the hell alone made it tougher. She told him they were looking for a girl who no longer existed, and he was inclined to agree, but he couldn’t help but feel for two people who obviously loved her deeply. Even he could admit that what he could give her wasn’t much. But for now, it was enough.

Her older brother Bern cornered him the next morning. “You treat her right as long as she’s willing to put up with you,” he warned, looming over Haymitch and staring at him with narrowed brown eyes. He looked like a younger, less grey-haired copy of his father Gunnar--solid, tall, bear-like build, the same dark brown hair and golden skin.

“Doing my best on that score,” Haymitch answered him as calmly as he could, even as he understood the impulse but wanted to roll his eyes a little at the posturing and chest-puffing from her pa and her brother. She’d passed far beyond their protection.

Bern made a low rumble of acknowledgment at that and then nodded, duty satisfied. “Good.” He smacked Haymitch on the shoulder hard enough to probably bruise, and Haymitch tried to not instinctively flinch or attack at it. “Then come get breakfast.” 

Her quiet little sister Heike, who resembled their mother Petra Mason down to the auburn hair and the hazel tinge to her eyes that Johanna also shared, didn’t seem to express much opinion on it one way or another, aside from a few shy smiles towards him and a murmur of thanks for saving Johanna’s life. 

They all played their parts for the cameras, but he sensed all the Masons were relieved when they could step back and just let the focus fall on him and Johanna. They were polite and kind and generous, but he knew they didn’t know what to make of him, or of this new world thrust upon them by Johanna’s survival in the arena. 

Their lovemaking in her bed was quiet and restrained, biting back sounds or muffling them into each other’s shoulders, trying to keep the squeaking of bedsprings to a minimum. They were all too conscious of the family right there down the hall who might overhear it. His ma hadn’t cared, she’d even seemed happy for them, so it had been different in Twelve. The Masons might have allowed him and Johanna to carry on, but he didn’t want to flaunt it right in front of them like he was taunting them.

All in all, he was glad to leave District Seven and all the awkward confused love of a family that only wanted the best for Johanna, but couldn’t come to grips yet with who she’d become. On the train headed to District Six, they just grabbed some cheese and fruit from the dining car for dinner, starved for each other far more than for food. That said plenty about how they’d changed already that deliberately passing up a meal seemed of such little consequence. But hearing her gasp and cry out on the way to District Six, caution thrown to the wind, he felt better. 

They went to Six and then Five, more weary faces, more dead kids whose families stood there in silence, more meaningless speeches. The only thing that changed was the stuff on the industry tours and the climate yielded from mountainous overcast damp to hot red desert bluffs. 

The hours he spent in bed with Johanna, whether it was sex or just talking quietly, became the only thing that was real. Holding each other close, he felt like he could face another day. Naked with her like that, in body and spirit, felt more honest than when they were on camera in well-tailored black and green, playing their parts like two well-programmed toys. They played the part of young carefree victorious lovers by day and by night they fucked each other desperately to wipe the slate clean, overwriting the lies with something true. 

He didn’t want to love her because he knew it could only hurt, but he loved her anyway because he couldn’t seem to do anything else. He couldn’t lie to her. Neither of them could pretend it was just sex and comfort anymore. Their parents saw the reality clearly and had warned them, but they were just trying to deny the inevitable for as long as they could. Things were tough enough already without facing the day this would end.

Four came next, and he watched the train roll through cypress groves and rolling bayous and marshes, a glimpse of the sea in the distance here and there. The girl he’d killed was named Esca, the first life he’d ever taken. _Two for one special,_ she’d drawled. And then there was Bream, and he could still feel Johanna’s hand against his and the hot blood on his fingers again as one carefully placed thrust of the knife ended it for him. He’d have sworn the look on Bream’s face was almost something like gratitude. Those green eyes and that gurgled choking were in his nightmares more often than he liked to admit.

They said the weather was unseasonably warm even for Four, and he felt like he might die from the heat and humidity, though the sweat trickling down his back wasn’t just from the unbearable warmth. The people of Four stood there and he got nothing from them, no sense of what they were thinking or feeling. The merry enchanting seafarers of Panem were now gone as blank as the face of calm water, hiding everything underneath completely. 

Four of their best had gone into the arena, and instead, the two to come out alive were from the worst districts in Panem. This was the first Career district they’d visited, and between being denied the victory and the responsibility he and Johanna personally had for killing off half the Career pack by the end, he knew they must be even more resentful than most. He hurriedly addressed Esca’s family, practiced enough from Vetch and Lea now to handle it better. She’d been a Career, Four knew the risks of sending their kids into the arena. He tried to not be angry at their indifference now—he’d simply been better than their best, and he shouldn’t have to apologize for that. 

But seeing Bream’s family was awful. No parents there, but an old man weathered and bent and gnarled as a piece of driftwood who was probably a grandpa. He’d bet that was an older sister with the same bronze-red hair and pale green eyes, maybe about twenty-two or twenty-three. There were three younger girls, all around reaping age, so it looked like Bream had been the only boy of their family. Mouthing the platitudes there of _We tried to ease his suffering_ sounded so much better than _He wasn’t going to live so we stabbed him through the heart so he wouldn’t be in agony anymore._

He remembered their promise to Bream, but trying to get time alone with the family wouldn’t be easy. “Excuse me,” he said to Mayor Solange, loud enough for the cameras. “Could we have a private moment with the Shaunessays before they go? Bream asked us to give ‘em a message.”

There was a faint murmur from the crowd. Everybody knew this wasn’t the ordinary done thing, but be damned if he’d shout a dying boy’s last words out on camera to the entire nation for their marveling and weeping. 

Mayor Solange hesitated, looking at Minerva and Honoria. “I don’t see why not,” Minerva said brightly. “It’s so good of you both to fulfill a promise!”

So after the cameras shut off, the two of them ended up in Mayor Solange’s office. The three Shaunessay girls were there, the old man, and the woman too. But now a darker-haired man was at her side who must be her husband, because there was a baby in the woman’s arms and another little darker-haired kid clutching the man’s hand. Haymitch sneaked a look and now that he was close enough, he saw a wedding ring on her finger.

“I’m Coral Odair,” she said, immediately taking charge. “Bream was my little brother.” She nodded to the rest. “My grandpa Lir, my husband Donnell, my sisters Delphia, Melly, and Solea.” She nodded to the toddler standing near Donnell. “Keith.” She hefted the baby in her arms, whom Haymitch estimated couldn’t be more than a month or two old. Her voice dropped to a low hush, almost a lullaby croon as she rocked the baby softly. “And this little man is Finnick.”

Well, wonderful, now he’d and Johanna had just met the entire family they’d deprived of a brother and uncle. “Pleasure,” he blurted, knowing it was anything but, for any of them.

“We promised Bream that if either of us made it we’d tell his family that he loved them and he was thinking of them at the end,” Johanna said hurriedly. That was a little more than the message they’d gotten then, but it got the point across well enough.

The silence fell heavily in the seconds that followed. Haymitch’s stomach churned uncomfortably, like it had in the days after his gut-repair surgery. Finally Coral nodded. “We knew he wasn’t going to recover from that mauling. And you did the best you could for him and you stayed with him. Other tributes would have just finished him off without a care. So…thank you.” He could only imagine what it must cost her to show gratitude to the kids who’d come back in her brother’s place, and tried to not dwell too much on how fucked up it was that she’d be thanking them for killing him.

The cameras ran with that story and whatever producers managed it in the Capitol clearly adjusted on the fly, because suddenly as an extra special treat, the Odairs showed the young Quell victors their family’s fishing boat. It was a shrimping boat, actually, as Donnell Odair informed them, and Haymitch was interested to hear their home port was actually a bit to the east of here, on a place called Crooked Bayou. By which Haymitch understood the Capitol had probably made the captains of Four all deliver their catch here to the district center this time just to have the harbor chock-full of boats for the Victory Tour pictures. He felt the surge of surly irritation again at being turned into a damn inconvenience for everyone to resent. 

“We don’t catch fish from this gear,” Donnell explained, pointing at the mesh nets hanging on their metal frames out past the sides of the boat over the water, like a pair of lacy dragonfly wings frozen halfway through the arc of down-beat. “The fish are caught mostly by the longliners offshore, though we have some trawlers here in the bay for the inshore types. This is shrimp-only gear.” Lost already by the jargon the man threw around so casually, Haymitch just smiled and nodded.

“But it’s still called fishing?” Johanna asked.

Coral laughed. “Yeah, it’s technically ‘shrimping’ but landlubbers like you can say ‘fishing’ anyway. Just like you’ll call a ladder a stairway, yeah?” 

Turned out the Odairs were also invited-slash-expected to come to the mayor’s dinner. He had no idea where they’d gotten formal clothing as fancy as what he and Johanna had courtesy of the victor stylist. The quality of the clothes here was finer than Twelve or the other districts he’d seen, far less ragged and patched. Chances were Coral had a nice dress for things like weddings and funerals, but he doubted she could just stuff an evening gown in her closet on the off-chance someday she might need it.

Seeing the marks of what looked like a hasty mend on the trousers at tall Donnell’s ankles, he looked next at Mayor Solange, who was three inches shorter, and understood. Good thing they left the jackets off in the heat, or else the cameras would have spied an obvious patch job there at the wrists. He was pretty sure that nice pale blue gown on Coral came from Syrenia Solange’s closet, rapidly altered too. The white silk sash might be covering some of that up. 

Coral and Syrenia and Johanna started talking mischievously about love—that sly, knowing girl talk that always left him feeling awkwardly self-conscious. “We were the ones who went out and rescued Don from a storm when his engines cut out,” Coral said with a laugh. “He asked if I wanted to strip down and crawl into the bunk to help warm him up from the hypothermia.”

Johanna laughed, but then he saw how her expression changed, something glittering hard and angry in her eyes. “Well, the entire country knows how I met Haymitch,” she said. “I don’t think any story’s gonna top _that_ for spectacle, huh?”

Minerva said with a look of appalled concern, “How much wine have you had tonight, Johanna?” Johanna glowered at her and reached for her glass, as if she’d throw the contents of it in Minerva’s face right then and there.

On the edge of panic, knowing if she did that someone would probably pay, Haymitch took his wineglass and tossed the whole thing back, barely tasting it, and the sheer burn of the alcohol almost made him gasp. One of the waiters at the edges of the room, some black-haired local probably hired to stand around for the evening just waiting for someone to need something, refilled it in an instant. He smiled over at Minerva like he didn’t have a care in the world. “It’s such a good wine, and we don’t want to be a bad guest to the Solanges and the Odairs, Minerva.” Blight just sighed, draining his own glass and shoving it forward to be filled again, looking like he had a massive headache.

A little muddle-headed from a few glasses of wine just to piss off the escorts, he and Johanna headed out into the night. Coral caught them shortly after the door. “You can stop pretending now,” Johanna told her. “You’ve been really nice, but…”

Coral stood there, hands rubbing her arms for a moment as if she were cold, even in the muggy air. Haymitch looked past her, into the distance of the cypress trees with their tendrils of moss, unable to meet her eyes. “We know they made you and your husband go on camera,” he said tiredly, thick-tongued. “’M sorry. For that. Bream. Everything.” Now he finally looked up, waiting for the condemnation, feeling like it would almost be a release for the torment.

She looked at them and nodded. For a moment he thought she was actually going to try to reassure them, but then she didn’t say anything and that was almost better. She’d have been lying if she pretended it was OK she’d lost her little brother. If he lost Ash he wouldn’t know what to do. “Thank you for staying with him,” she said finally, “and for having the guts to come see us. District Four won’t forget a kindness.” Then she was gone, fading into the quiet of the night.

~~~~~~~~~~

A little drunk and a lot miserable, she thought she didn’t want to head back to the train just yet, because she didn’t want to listen to Minerva or Honoria nagging, or see Blight’s silent unease. So spying the wooden boardwalk towards the beach, she grabbed Haymitch’s hand and tugged him after her. The large luxurious hotels were lit up with whatever the Capitol guests were doing tonight; Mayor Solange had told them it was pretty full here with Capitol tourists for the Victory Tour, whereas December was normally almost empty. They could afford to fly here for a day or two just to see her and Haymitch wandering around the district, and that disgusted her even more. But they weren’t on the beach, so she didn’t have to think about them.

Kicking off her shoes and leaving them at the foot of the ramp heading down from the dunes, now that the sun had gone down the sand was cool between her toes. Wiggling her feet into it, she sighed in relief because she was glad to be rid of the constricting, uncomfortable shoes. Apparently she could wear heels now that he was notably taller than her, and they kept inflicting them on her for her formal dinner dress with a vengeance. Haymitch rolled up the cuffs of his trousers. She shivered a bit at the wind blowing in from the sea, catching the full force without the windbreak of the cypress trees or the dunes like they had towards the central square. It wasn’t that cold, but she shivered anyway, maybe more from the fatigue of the night. “Don’t have a coat to give you,” he said apologetically.

“You would, huh?” she said, imagining he would. 

“Ma raised me right.” He gave her a lopsided grin that wavered suddenly and he looked away as he muttered, “Never mind what I’m turning into here, that ain’t on her.”

He looked so forlorn, silhouetted in the moonlight as he looked out towards the dark water. Alone with his thoughts and his troubles and she felt alarmed, because if he turned away and turned inward, then she’d be alone too and she wasn’t sure she could bear it. It terrified her, so she gripped his shoulder a bit harder than she might need to, turning him back to her, pressing a kiss to his lips. There was a faint hint of wine on his breath, just as there must be on hers. She thought, _Come back, don’t leave me alone like this_. 

Whether it was the force of that kiss or the dizziness of the wine pushing him on, she didn’t know, but he came back with a desire that held a barely-leashed edge of violence to it. She didn’t protest as he kissed her fiercely, hands shoving into her hair, raking out the pins and making it fall down over her shoulders, totally destroying the hairstyle the preps had spent an hour creating. That was good, she wanted it gone, and so she didn’t protest as he backed them up against one of the heavy support pillars for the boardwalk, into the cool, concealing shadows, kissing her again, his body straining against hers, holding her in place.

Kissing him back, she felt him rucking up her skirt, felt the night air through her thin silk stockings. She reached down too, tugging at her underwear, stepping out of it, then his fingers were on her, in her, thrusting and stroking and rousing her with a fire fit to burn down a whole forest. She let out a faint whimper, head tipping back against the support, but it wasn’t nearly enough. With shaking hands she unbuttoned his trousers, pushing down his undershorts, touching him in turn and feeling him hard as anything, hearing the soft groan he made.

He lifted her up, hands underneath her ass, and she wrapped her legs around his hips, gripping his shoulders. Pinned between the support and the weight of his body, she should have felt trapped, but she trusted him. Then he was inside her, the blessed relief of him pressing in satisfyingly deep, and she looked him in the eyes, savoring the feeling of being whole. It was hard and fast and she loved it, nipping him lightly on the neck, gripping his shoulders tighter, squeezing her internal muscles, urging him on. She cried out, not sure whether the roar in her ears was her own heartbeat or the breakers on the beach, but the pleasure of it felt like it was drowning her in wave after wave. She came back to herself with his face buried in the curve of her neck, panting. Finally he released his grip on her, and she realized just how tightly she’d been clutching his shoulders in turn. Her legs felt wobbly as she lowered them back to the sand. Instinctively, she smoothed down her rumpled skirt.

Unleashing the edge of roughness with someone who wasn’t afraid—she felt like this was being a victor, not dressing up in pretty clothes and playing pretend while families grieved their dead kids. He kissed her again, arms going around her and holding her tight, as she breathed in the scent of him and watched over his shoulder to see the waves scouring the beach smooth. If only everything in her life washed so clean.

After Four, Three seemed more bearable. Everybody knew their place in the routine and they just did it. But in Two, they both had to face the parents of kids they’d killed. 

Aurelia Pennington’s family might as well have been made of stone for all the expression they showed as Johanna addressed them, remembering the tall fawn-skinned girl with the coppery hair, the first person she’d ever killed. She would never forget the sound that hatchet had made when it struck Aurelia. She would never regret having saved Haymitch by it, but that didn’t lessen the weight of it. 

For Haymitch, Remus Thread apparently had a twin brother, a dark-haired, dark-eyed mirror image who stared at Haymitch mockingly the entire time, and she could feel his unease. 

As for Severus Hollbrook, the legacy tribute that had been Haymitch’s final duel, his mother and younger brother stood there, but his father Septus didn’t. Victor of the 20th Games, she only assumed that they hadn’t made him attend with the tradition that victors met during the Games rather than the Tour taking precedence over mandatory attendance. She now understood that victors had different rules, but they were at the Capitol’s command all the same. 

Same story in One for addressing the family of her own final fight. Silk Lafitte from the 28th Games didn’t show up for her daughter Sapphire, but her husband, an older brother, and a younger sister who shared the same blond hair and green eyes were there. They all looked at her with cool disregard.

“Remember,” Blight said that night as the train made the final journey towards the Capitol, “be cheerful and engaging now, that’s what they want.” He glanced at Haymitch. “Have a drink. You look like you could use it. Both of you, really.”

Haymitch reached for the bottle of brandy Blight had, and two spare glasses. Raising an eyebrow to her in question, she nodded. He poured two glasses and pushed one towards her. It burned going down and she heard him coughing at it too, but like the wine-haze on the beach in Four, it actually felt a little bit good. Though the way it dulled her thoughts and feelings scared her. 

The Capitol was an endless giddy whirl of parties and interviews and celebrations. She changed clothes three or four times a day because she couldn’t be seen in the same outfit at two occasions—it would be a snub to their hosts. She ate just enough to keep people off her back though she wouldn’t have required a drink of their puke-inducer if she’d needed to clear her stomach, because she felt queasy all the time from the nerves.

Caesar interviewed them, dressed in silver, and they played the part of a giddy young couple in love. “Y’know, covered in blood and oozing butterfly bites ain’t the most attractive, so she _must_ have seen something else in me,” Haymitch said with a bit of a roguish smirk, reaching over and taking her hand.

“Have you two considered the difficulties? A two-victor relationship is so unusual to begin. There’s never been a marriage like that.” Probably because in most districts the only available male or female victor wasn’t a peer in age, Johanna thought wryly, and even in the Career districts, they probably knew having a double legacy kid would doom the poor thing even more. “Plus the cross-district aspect…immigration being forbidden?” They were wearing green and black, as usual. As if anyone could ever forget they came from different districts.

Blight had coached them on this thoroughly. She squeezed Haymitch’s hand tighter for the cameras. “Our duties to the Games will have to come first, of course, we wouldn’t neglect that. We know what we owe the Capitol in gratitude and duty. And he and I have agreed that if we meet a special someone back home, that’s fine. But…what he and I have, even if it’s just a few weeks a year…he’s worth it.” The audience cooed appreciatively and she heard a few muffled sounds of applause.

“Is that true for you, Haymitch?”

His eyes held hers and for that moment she could ignore Caesar, ignore the cameras, and ignore the people in those velvet seats and in front of their televisions eagerly awaiting every word with baited breath. “She understands me,” he said simply.

After a long silence, Caesar looked at them and said solemnly, “Then my very best goes out to you, Haymitch and Johanna, and your sacrifice of your own interests in the name of your districts and the Games won’t go unappreciated.” Then he turned and suddenly he was all energy and smiles and dazzling white teeth as he hailed, “I give you the star-crossed lovers of the Second Quarter Quell, ladies and gentlemen!”

The audience erupted at that, cheering and weeping at the same time. She saw Blight flash a discreet thumbs-up from the front row. At that moment she wanted to go shower because she felt filthy. What she felt for him was utterly real, but being forced to give it to these people and let them make it theirs had somehow soiled it.

~~~~~~~~~~

The farewell ball at Snow’s mansion was the biggest social event of the year, and Haymitch found himself wondering nervously which of the people clamoring to speak to him or dance with him or get him a drink would be the ones paying for his body next summer. In some ways it was even harder now, given the direct experience of what it was like with Johanna, done in love. The thought of that, twisted and profane with lust and money and deceit, made him sick. But that was his reality.

So in a way he was relieved when Snow called them out of the party for a few minutes, though he immediately went on high alert. This couldn’t be good. In Snow’s office, which he noticed had no chairs, he and Johanna stood before the massive expanse of the mahogany desk like two naughty kids called in to see the principal.

“Mister Arnesson has informed me,” Snow said, hands clasped and elbows resting on the desk, sitting at least a foot above them thanks to the massive dais the desk rested on, “that he’s discussed certain aspects of a victor’s duty to the Capitol with both of you.”

Haymitch nodded. Finding his tongue, he said, “He has.” After a beat, he added, “Sir,” a little reluctantly.

“I find I wonder when he discussed it with you,” Snow mused, those cold snake eyes studying them both. Haymitch felt a cold sweat trickling down his spine—did the man know?

“He told us right before we came here,” Johanna said. “Said that he’d let us have our fun for a couple of weeks but now it was time for us to understand reality. Our duties—all of them—come first.” Her fingers gripped his tight and he could sense her terror.

“Yes, that’s what he told me as well,” Snow said dismissively, and Haymitch tried to not let out an audible sigh of relief at how Johanna had apparently figured out what Blight would say. “It does save some explanation on my end. I trust you have no objections?” 

Of course he had a million objections of outrage and horror and fury, but he stood there silent as the markers in the graveyard his people would be buried under if he tried to defy Snow. “Excellent.” Snow shrugged. “You understand, of course, that your lives belong to the Capitol. I could easily have let one of you die and been well within my rights, but I chose to spare an extra tribute in the interest of mercy. You both live only because I said it would be so. Remember that, Mister Abernathy, Miss Mason. So what you do is by my permission, and remember what I ask you to do is for the betterment of my people. People enjoy seeing their victors interacting with the wealthy and powerful of the Capitol. The wealthy and elite enjoy that privilege and contribute more to the stability and economy of the Capitol for it. All in all, people are happy.”

 _People in the districts don’t enjoy seeing their fucking victors interacting with Capitol snobs, and I’m damn well not happy,_ Haymitch thought, but the districts didn’t matter to Snow. He was pretty sure the man didn’t even regard them as people. He and Johanna were just pieces to be used. Neither of them moved or said anything, just waiting and enduring. “Thanks to your romantic entanglement, you’ve become less valuable to me,” Snow went on. “Or shall I say…hm…less marketable to some people who will be reluctant to meddle with a charming young romance.” Blight had been right. “Unfortunate, but I grant you that you’ve given the Capitol an intriguing story, so that probably offsets it.”

He finally realized Snow wanted some kind of response. “Thank you?” Johanna finally ventured hesitantly.

“I do hope what you told Mister Flickerman was correct and that you realize your duties come first. It will be difficult only seeing each other during the Games, and I’m afraid telephone contact between districts is still impossible. But those are hardships you chose by starting a romance. So if during your attendance here I call upon you for any kind of engagement, I expect you to go, and be gracious, as required. Your relationship must come second.” The implicit threat was still there— _Behave or else. You’re not special, even if the Capitol is treating you like you are._

“Yes, sir,” they echoed meekly. 

“Here,” Snow said, picking up a bundle of flowers from his desk. “To decorate your room on the train as you head homeward. A victor’s privilege—these come from my own gardens.” He spoke with the warmth of pride. Haymitch eyed the roses, in all shades of white from pristine new snow to faintly blush-kissed to a hint of icy blue.

“Thank you sir,” Johanna said, almost a mechanical _thankyousir_.

They left, the bouquet of roses in Johanna’s arms, forcing the smiles back on their faces as they did so.

Finally the train headed east, and Minerva announced they would be in Seven tomorrow morning. The thick, heady perfume of roses in their room made him sick, remembering Snow’s casual words and cold eyes. They opened the window and tossed them out somewhere near the Two border into the crisp winter night. He left the window cracked open as they made love that last night, wanting the cloying smell of roses entirely gone. He wanted nothing but the memory of her.

He kissed her goodbye on the train, clinging to her and trying to not cry like a little boy. From a few sniffling sounds she made, she was fighting back the tears too. “We knew it was gonna end,” he told her.

“Doesn’t make it easier,” she said miserably. “And when I see you again…”

“I know.” What time he could steal with her would be penciled in around his tributes and his buyers. He couldn’t bear to think about that just now.

Then they had to exit the train and do it again for the cameras. He shook Blight’s hand, sincerely thanking him for everything. It was perfect—anguished and romantic but not embarrassing sniveling with Johanna, respectful and warm with Blight.

He climbed the stairs back onto the train and went to the bar car, grabbing the bottle of whiskey and taking it to his room. The sheets were still rumpled from where she’d lain in his arms scarce hours before, whispering soft words about how she loved him. He breathed in deeply, convinced he could still smell her. Sitting on the chair, he took a swig of the whiskey, and the burn of it in his throat was as sharp as the sting of the tears in his eyes he was determined to not let fall. He wasn’t a child. He would have to accept this reality and cope with it as best he could. He’d had some time with her, even with the misery of the Tour, and he should be grateful for that. Capping the bottle again, he set it on the nightstand and went to go find a book or something to do besides sitting in that room thinking of her.

Back in Twelve, things settled in. He missed her. He stared at the telephone and wished he could call her. But he couldn’t and that was that. He studied the fiddle furiously because it gave him something to do, and he took up woodcarving because he could hear her voice talking with enthusiasm about various wood types and what they could be used to make.

Burt caught him one day in January at the Hob. It was the first he’d seen his old friend in the few weeks since the Tour. “Was it her all along?” Burt demanded bluntly, slapping a rabbit down on the counter as he sidled up beside Haymitch. “That why you broke up with Briar? You already had a little thing going on the side?”

It stunned him. Burt was always more of the quiet one. For temper he’d have expected an outburst from Jonas Hawthorne, but it was Burdock Everdeen that stood there, steely rage in his grey eyes. “I broke up with Briar in October, not August like I would have if I had another thing going,” he pointed out. “And what, when would we have had time, Johanna and me? You saw the arena cameras just like everyone else.” He thought he understood what was going on, though. Burt had taken up with Briar and now he wanted to fight over what he saw as an offense to her. 

“Yeah, well, clearly you certainly didn’t wait more than a day or two after she got here for Tree-Girl to get busy with your cock,” Burt scoffed, “so forgive me if I ain’t buying it, Hay.”

He’d heard the expression “seeing red” but in his case, it was more like a dizzy fury where everything was out of focus and his blood roared in his ears. His fists clenched and he thought about screaming about how dare he judge, he didn’t know what it was like, he didn’t know what Haymitch’s _life_ would be like now. He looked at his old friend and wanted to smash his face into the splintered old boards of Mol McCrory’s stand until he shut up.

He’d always been a good fighter on the playground because being small and fast and cunning, he’d learned to fight dirty and to win. But something more than that was afoot because Burt held up his hands, eyes startled wide, looking almost frightened. Haymitch had the thought he probably looked like a killer and his friend had suddenly remembered just what Haymitch was capable of doing now. “Her name,” he said, swallowing his rage down only with effort, “is Johanna Mason, and I love her. And until Briar tells me otherwise, she and I are still friends and I care about her. I really don’t want to make it awkward on her by you and me being at odds when you two are obviously stepping out, so fuck off unless you’re gonna be civil, Burt.”

Grabbing the packet of candles he’d bought from Mol while he was talking to her about more fiddle lessons, he next passed the stall run by Thal Grey, who made white liquor from tesserae grain. The few sips he’d had of it, when he was thirteen and Jonas stole a bottle from his daddy, he’d felt like it was ripping his guts out. He laughed now at his stupid child self, because he knew what guts being ripped out felt like. 

Remembering Four and Coral and the boardwalk with Johanna, remembering the soothing burn of the alcohol on the train and how it made everything just a little bit hazy, he slapped some coins down on the counter. He didn’t even know how much the liquor cost and he didn’t much care, even as he knew that casual disregard for money was just one more thing that set him apart from the rest of the people here in the Hob, marked him as no longer quite Seam. It depressed him enough that it only cemented his resolve. “Gimme a bottle of that, Thal.”


	5. Chapter 5

On the train to the Capitol, Johanna watched the two tributes sitting there quietly watching the reaping recaps with a nervous eye, checking out the competition. Larch Steinmetz was fourteen years old, small and skinny, and she was from the lesser-skilled crews, the ones that logged the low quality lumber to be made into things like paper and chip-board. Her axe skills probably weren’t the greatest—she knew they even let the “trash pine” crews use chainsaws just because the sheer demand, and lack of a need for care, meant speed was everything. Martin Edelmain was seventeen, big and strong, but his raw umber skin and straight black hair showed he was from the artisans and merchants of Seven. She was pretty sure his parents worked in the carpentry shops when she thought about it, alongside Bern still finishing his apprenticeship. So great, maybe Martin could nail or plane someone to death. She had the thought she hoped Bern taught her eventual nieces and nephews some skills before they turned of reaping age, or she’d have to make sure of it herself. They would grow up with a more secure life with a carpenter as a father, but they wouldn’t grow up in the woods as she had, and that had saved her life in the arena too many times to number.

She looked over at Blight, silently asking him, _Any hope_? The look of regret and tired resignation on his face said plenty. She shouldn’t get her hopes up at all.

Drawing her knees up to her chest, she watched the reapings herself. One, Two, and Four looked like they were coming on with a vengeance—all older kids, all looking determined to regain whatever honor they’d lost by being beat out in the Quell by Seven and Twelve.

Haymitch stood there on the stage in Twelve, in well-cut trousers and a vest he looked like he’d rather not be wearing, all alone as Twelve’s only living victor. Given that she looked out over the girls in their worn skirts and blouses, wearing a silk dress herself, she understood. 

He’d turned seventeen in April, she remembered—not that she’d been able to call or anything. He looked like he’d filled out a little bit since the winter, shoulders and chest broader beneath his shirt, starting to grow into that too-thin frame the Capitol had forced to grow taller. Both of them had been looking at kids even older than them up for the reaping, expected to somehow know how to mentor them. At least she had Blight. Haymitch had nobody.

From Twelve they reaped a blond girl of sixteen or seventeen, Larkspur Taylor, and a little dark-haired boy who looked about ten rather than twelve, Dean Gordon. She’d been clenching her fingers into fists during the girls’ reaping, dreading hearing _Henrika Mason_ , seeing Heike standing there with the fourteens. Now she breathed another sigh of relief for him that his brother Ash was safe because the name _Ashford Abernathy_ hadn’t been drawn, remembering the quiet, clever little boy she’d met on the Victory Tour. But if Larch and Martin looked like dim prospects, Haymitch’s looked even worse.

Blight pretty much confirmed it after dinner. Voice pitched low, he shoved a drink of kirschwasser at her. She took it, tasting the cherry-flavored burn. “They’ll be coming on strong for Seven and Twelve this year right away,” he said grimly. “The Careers in particular since they’ve got something to prove now. And we can’t just play Seven’s usual tactic and tell them to run away and try to wait it out a few days to thin the field, because after you, the sponsors will expect big things from Seven to make them worthy of notice.”

She stared at him, shaking her head. “So what? We just tell them they’re totally screwed?”

He shrugged slightly, head and shoulders bowed a little as if the weight of it was a physical presence. “We tell them to train as hard as they can, and we work the sponsors as hard as we can. And between you and me, we pretty much accept the fact that either they die at the Cornucopia or they die slowly for lack of sponsor attention. This is not going to be our year.” 

“Well that’s a real comfort for all of us, isn’t it?” she said sarcastically. All that meant was Larch and Martin’s lives. All that meant was that the moment those kids were dead, Snow would probably be calling her to go send her off and turn her into a whore. She wondered who was drooling at the prospect even now, and wondered if she could even do it. The blackness gathered at the back of her mind again, threatening menace that could send her spiraling again into that lost and panicked place. So she fed her rage instead at Snow and Capitol perverts and the whole lousy system of the Games, using the fire of that to banish the darkness away. It felt good, felt like being in control of things in some small way. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, giving her a look of genuine sympathy.

She shook her head. “Save your pity,” she snapped, not wanting it. Pity made her into that pathetic little helpless victim she’d been in the arena before she got a grip. So long as she stayed a bit angry, she felt strong, felt like they couldn’t break her.

~~~~~~~~~~

They were both pretty hopeless, and he knew that from the first moment. Larkspur was from his class—or at least, the class he’d been in when he’d been in school. But she was merchie, from the tailors in town, and Dean was in Ash’s class but about half as smart and half as fierce. Nice kid, eager to please, but niceness didn’t win in the arena. The way he kept looking at Haymitch with a hopeful pleading look, as if somehow expecting Haymitch Abernathy would magically save his ass, just made him feel sick.

They arrived in the Capitol, and for the tribute parade, and the chariot costumes were as awful as they’d been last year with the tiny shorts and miner headlamps. The tributes wore what amounted to black and yellow silk ribbons strategically wound around their bodies and some body paint—Terricia claimed dreamily it was to represent “the hopeful ray of light of a miner’s lamp contrasting with the darkness of mine tunnels, and isn’t it just lovely that she’s blond and he’s dark!” He wondered from those eerie wide-blown pupils and that insipid smile just what drug she was on constantly, and how much of it. Or maybe she was nuts or stupid to begin and the drugs just tacked a bit extra on to that.

“My tributes look like a pair of fucking demented tracker jackers,” he muttered to Johanna, finding her as the last chariot rolled out towards the holding area. She’d changed, as had he, from their reaping stage clothes. But he’d thought she looked a little older there on stage, a tiny bit more towards a woman rather than a girl. Up close, that was confirmed. He couldn’t put his finger on quite what it was in the way she carried herself or the balance of her features, but she’d grown up a bit. Considering what they were facing, small surprise. But given she was a few months older than him, and now he was finally starting to catch up on that gawky growth, he still felt like he looked like a boy, not a man. How he felt inside was totally different. He’d never been a child after Honoria drew his name. He’d certainly never been one after he spent a few weeks with the blood of people he’d killed all over him. Sometimes, feeling filthy, he still scrubbed himself raw just to make sure it was gone, and hadn’t seeped into his very pores. Killing didn’t wash off, though. He doubted being whored out would either.

She rolled her eyes, flashing him a smirk. “Yeah, and ours look like trees, once again. You’re shocked, I know.” But she slipped her hand into his as they headed for the stands to watch the parade down the Avenue of the Tributes. And that was how they said hello to each other after seven months apart, seven months of loneliness and feeling weird around the people of his own district who didn’t know what to make of him now and the occasional aching, restless dream-memory of her. It was comfortable, no need for awkwardness, and clearly nothing between them had changed. Considering he’d been afraid that somehow it would have been lost through those long months, and maybe what they had was just a flash in the pan spurred on by the stress of the Victory Tour, that filled him with an unspeakable gratitude.

They behaved themselves in the week leading up to the Games, much as every bit of being near her made him aware of her. The scent of her, the curve of her hips and the line of her back beneath her clothing; all of it cast him adrift in memories and desire, and he could see from the looks she gave him that she wanted him as well. It would have been a comfort, given how overwhelming it all was, and some part of him wanted to just get in every single moment he could with her before his body started going to the highest bidder.

But they kept their hands off and paid attention. Apparently the two of them hadn’t lied entirely when they told Snow they knew the priorities—their duties absolutely came first. Because every time he caught himself daydreaming about the way her skin looked in lamplight, he would remember Larkspur and Dean. He had no business thinking about getting laid when at least one of them wouldn’t survive, and the only chance he had of bringing one home was to give it his all as a mentor. He owed them that. 

So he listened to Blight, who stepped in to advise him and Johanna both, and to the other mentors who realized he had nobody and offered advice. He listened to Chantilly Forbes from One trying to teach him to work sponsors with charm and attention. He listened to Chaff McCormick from Eleven who told him what it was really like being from a district where sponsors didn’t care. “Seven or twelve” was commonly understood shorthand for those mentors—they didn’t call the sponsors until after the first week or the first dozen deaths, and a tribute proved they weren’t among the weakest. “Seven or twelve, y’all. Given your districts, that should be easy for you two to remember,” Chaff said with a cheerful guffaw, looking at him and Johanna. 

He listened to Hannibal Destin from Two, gruff but carrying an edge of respect for a boy who’d defeated some of Two’s best tributes, because Two brought home their kids more often than any other, so even with the advantages of Career training clearly the man knew how the system worked. 

He listened to Mags Robichaux from Four and Woof Jones from Eight, the indomitable duo that had been mentoring tributes ever since the early days, because they probably knew every single trick in the book by this point.

He listened to the woman Honoria had called “Taffy”, Taffeta Locke from Eight, who didn’t mentor, having been forcibly kept by the Secretary of the Treasury as a mistress for years. But she was the one who’d made his wardrobe, and Johanna’s, because she was stylist to the victors. As her son Cinna sat stitching scraps of fabric into outfits for his dolls, she took measurements for more clothing and quietly advised both of them on how to survive the hidden game of being sold off. That advice was as valuable as any up in Mentor Central. 

He and Johanna agreed they were surprised how readily the other victors offered advice to their nominal rivals, but they quickly understood: districts didn’t have much place in Mentor Central. Johanna said, “I think it may be you too—you’re alone so they’re trying to help you, and they’ll help me out too because of it.” Pathetic as that made him sound, he couldn’t disagree. 

He went into the Games with no guaranteed sponsors for either of his tributes and a sense of dread at that fact. _Seven or twelve_ sounded like it was going to be his life from now on. Larkspur’s training score of five wasn’t bad, but she’d been nice and quiet and gracious during the interview and thus totally unmemorable. Dean was even worse—a score of two and open nervousness on stage.

They dumped the tributes into a frozen wasteland, pristine snow and ice dazzling the eye under a cold, pale sun, as giant white-furred mutts prowled the mountainous perimeter. The gong sounded and the Four boy in his blue-green parka—his name was Spinnaker, Haymitch remembered as he watched the unfolding scene on his mentor screen in wide-eyed horror—lunged for Larkspur two pedestals over as she tried to run away from the Cornucopia. Not even bothering with a weapon when he caught her as they both floundered through the snow, Spinnaker gave a sharp jerk of strong hands, and the high-tech audio in Haymitch’s headphones, crystal clear, caught the audible crack of her neck snapping and her gasp of surprise and pain abruptly cut off. He watched her vital signs on the biostats screen Hannibal had just recently explained to him go blank; then he barely had time to switch his audio to Dean, because the big Two boy, Brutus, ran him through at the Cornucopia. Dean gasped and cried out for his ma, and his blood ran red on the frozen snow.

He glanced up at the game clock—two minutes and seventeen seconds in they were both dead already, and he could hardly process that. He looked over at the Seven station to see Blight and Johanna already taking off their headphones too, and looking at the wall of twenty-four televisions, his two on the bottom right with their Twelve-black border were blank, and so were Seven’s green-edged ones further up. 

Pulling off his headphones, feeling dazed and defeated and appalled, he headed over towards Blight. Johanna hadn’t even gotten out of her chair yet, headphones still clutched in her fingers in a white-knuckled grip.

“Careers got ‘em all,” Blight confirmed, nodding towards One, Two, and Four. “I knew this would happen this year and I imagine they planned it that way—sponsors will love it.” Looking over at Chantilly and Niello for One, Mags and Carrick for Four, and Hannibal and Achillea for Two, eyes intent on their consoles watching their tributes even now busy killing other kids, he understood that victor friendship only went so far. Even as they’d advised him so kindly and tried to help, they’d apparently coolly told their tributes to hurry up and kill the Seven and Twelve tributes first as deliberate targets. “That’s that,” Blight muttered, sounding both irritated and tired. “Let’s go take care of ‘em down in the tribute morgue, and I’ll go buy you kids a drink.” It wasn’t even noon yet for that, but the grim note to his voice sent a tingle of awareness down Haymitch’s spine.

“Tonight?” he asked hesitantly.

“Very likely,” Blight answered.

~~~~~~~~~~

For all she thought she knew something about sex after those sessions in the forest with Rhus, and after sleeping with Haymitch, she’d found out tonight that she knew nothing. She’d known what it was like done out of love, but she’d known nothing about lust and perversion and a desire to possess and humiliate and destroy. Everything hurt, and inside she was still screaming the way she couldn’t while it was all happening.

She couldn’t go back to the Seven apartment because she didn’t want Blight right now. He’d been through it, but she couldn’t let him see her like this, broken and bruised and bleeding as she was. Instinctively she pressed the button in the elevator for the Twelve apartment. She didn’t really want Haymitch to see her like this either but she couldn’t bear to be alone right now because she thought she might want nothing more than to find some way to die rather than endure it again tomorrow night or after.

But she didn’t make it up to the twelfth floor. The bell of the elevator chimed, the doors slid open, and that almost made her scream in frustration and alarm because she couldn’t be seen like this. “Oh, hell. We were going to take you two out tonight and get your mind off it, but you’re in no shape for that, are you?” Johanna looked up to see it was Clover Anden, Nine’s female mentor, tall and fair-skinned with honey-brown hair and dark brown eyes. She’d won the 45th, and from the look on her face, Johanna understood immediately that Clover had been sold off too. “Fucking animals,” Clover muttered angrily. “All right, kiddo, let’s get you back to Bli—“

“No!” The word burst out, even as her bruised throat ached at it. She jabbed again at the Twelve button, showing where she wanted to go.

Clover looked at her for a long moment. Johanna wondered how bad she really looked. Then the other woman finally nodded. “Twelve. You can wait for him if he’s not back. He’s probably having a bad night of it too.” 

Too tired to protest, she let Clover lead her to the door of the Twelve penthouse, and her knocking produced an Avox. “She’s waiting for Haymitch,” Clover informed the red-uniformed girl with her dark hair. The girl’s hands flew through the air. “He’s back? How long?”

Clover’s hand squeezed Johanna’s shoulder, and Johanna bit back a cry of protest because her arms had been wrenched hard behind her back. Hearing the muffled whimper, Clover immediately removed her hand and murmured an apology. “He’s been back only about ten minutes. And I’m calling the doctor. No arguments.”

Stepping, halfway stumbling, into the living room, she was glad that Clover retreated back out. The dark-haired Avox and the glimmer of pity in her eyes was bad enough as the woman scurried off to wherever Avoxes went when they were apparently trying their best to be no more noticeable than the furniture. She wished she could go unnoticed and unremarked too.

Haymitch leaned against the back of the couch on one hip, pain drawing his features and the lines of his body taut. She could see the dark shadow of a bruise already forming at the line of his jaw, as if rough fingers had grabbed him there and held on hard. Had they been just catching his attention or forcing him to turn his head, open his mouth—what? She didn’t know and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, because she had enough nightmares in her own head right then.

He looked at her and the exhaustion and horror and shame in his eyes mirrored her own soul so completely she wanted to cry for them both in that instant, but she gritted her teeth, coming closer. She could smell the same scents on him as she knew clung to her like a nauseating perfume—musk, sweat, and semen. When that scent was from Haymitch and her together, she hadn’t minded at all. But now the scent of Thalius Eland was on her, and she felt as though she was something he’d pissed on like a dog to mark her as his.

The rusty smell of blood was on Haymitch too, and her, and that wasn’t something that she’d known in bed with him. But they’d known it in the arena all too intimately, and she wasn’t sure she could bear to be near him again with the reek of blood. She wasn’t sure she could bear for him, or anyone, to touch her right now. So she looked at him, battered and hurting and humiliated, breathing in the mingled scents of sex and pain that her mind now labeled _rape_ , and she couldn’t help but shudder.

“Shower,” he said tiredly. “I…I won’t touch you any more than I have to do to get you clean. I swear.” He didn’t meet her eyes, and the vulnerability of that and his words made her understand she should return that same favor and not touch him more than was strictly necessary. How she could be grateful and devastated all at once, she didn’t know. 

It hurt how careful they were with each other underneath the warm spray of the shower, but she knew she couldn’t have withstood anyone else being there. She also knew she couldn’t have scrubbed herself alone with as painful as everything seemed to be. He was too gentle with her, when she really wanted to just scour off her own skin. But when she turned to help him wash, seeing the blooming dark smudges of bruises emerging already on his shoulders and hips and thighs and ribs, she couldn’t bear to do anything but touch him as softly and kindly as she could. They’d waxed his body as thoroughly as hers, she noticed. They must have also given him one of those chemical injections this afternoon, just like they had with her, in order to make him safely sterile while he was here. No hair, no scars, no risk of pregnancy, but freedom to do what they wished with them—this was what the Capitol wanted. They stayed in the shower through four cycles of what turned out to be orange-scented foam. 

She found Clover must have told Blight, because her pajamas were there in Haymitch’s bedroom when they emerged. But the doctor was there too, a man who introduced himself as Lucius Sixleigh, the victors’ physician. Forced to drop the towel, she endured the fresh shame of being naked in front of yet another Capitolite, and one who prattled on about her “unwise choices”.

Given injections of morphling and a rapid healing agent, Sixleigh chirped, “You’ll be right as rain tomorrow evening! Now,” his eerie pale yellow eyes studied them from a constellation of leopard spots on his face, “I understand after the arena you may have a taste for more of, well, _an edge_ to things, but really, you two should be more careful with each other.”

She met Haymitch’s eyes as he stood there naked too, towel still clutched in his hand, and the first spark of life was there as he cocked an eyebrow and nodded towards Sixleigh as if to say, _Do you believe this guy?_

She swallowed a nearly hysterical laugh. _The moron actually thinks we did this to each other._ But of course—who else would the lovebirds of the Second Quarter Quell be fucking? They had each other. And if Sixleigh cheerfully chose to ignore the reality and refuse to use his brain, the two of them could hardly enlighten him.

Finally, they got dressed in their pajamas and she felt better with her skin covered from their eyes. Haymitch gave a bark of sarcastic laughter the moment Sixleigh finally left, a sound that was far too harsh and far too old for a seventeen-year-old boy. “Obviously I’ve got the right equipment to hurt you like that, but I kind of wanted to ask him just how he thinks you managed to stick a cock up my ass, Hanna,” he said mockingly. She’d seen the blood on him, and saw how stiffly and painfully he moved, but hearing him say it so plainly, she flinched for him. She flinched for herself too, remembering the initial tearing pain, and then the unbearable, red-hot agony at each thrust, knowing that must have been exactly what he’d experienced as well. 

She managed a tired laugh. “There’s probably a fake cock somewhere I could have used, Haymitch. I hear there’re really great shops in this city that sell that kind of things.”

He looked at her, boyish uncertainty now emerging from behind the brittle dark cynicism. “Did I hurt you?” he asked her softly. “That first time? You said you were OK, but…”

She shook her head. It had felt a little uncomfortable those first few moments, just a sense of her body being unused to what was happening and suddenly forced to adapt. She’d touched herself plenty, true, but her own fingers were a hell of a lot different from actually having him inside her. There had been a tiny soreness, quickly forgotten in the spiraling pleasure—nothing at all compared to this searing agony that had been all about another person’s ravenous greed. Haymitch had cared about her, wanted to please her. She remembered laughing with him that night, urging him on, and it seemed like it had happened a thousand years ago. “You didn’t hurt me,” she whispered tiredly, reaching out and daring to take his hand in hers, clutching him desperately.

~~~~~~~~~~

He’d been confused, as Jettel Steel ordered him around impatiently, as to why her husband Rabastan was there too in the bedroom. Hearing the grunts and the rhythmic sound of skin on skin behind him as Jettel shoved his head down between her legs, he’d figured the man just got off on watching his wife with someone else and that was awkward and weird enough that he tried to ignore it so he could focus on the job at hand.

He’d found out better soon enough when Rabastan ordered him to turn around and give him the same treatment Haymitch had given his wife. Then later, it got worse. _You might have fucked that girl of yours mindless throughout the whole country but…still a virgin here,_ Rabastan had said with a laugh, _nice and tight._ He’d tried to not scream, tried to not even bite his lip and close his eyes because Jettel’s face was right in his, kissing him hungrily, shoving her hips against his even as her husband thrust into him again and again, teeth scraping against Haymitch’s shoulder. In the end, he felt like he was just the helpless toy sandwiched between two Steels both vigorously using him. The fact his own body somehow betrayed him in the midst of the panic and the pain, exploding into pleasure, just made him feel even more disgusting.

Johanna was here and he hadn’t wanted her to see him like this, and he hurt all the more to see her looking so abused and devastated as well. But now as she reassured him softly that clumsy and new as he’d been, he hadn’t hurt her, he found the touch of her hand wasn’t enough. Reaching out, drawing her in close, he thought desperately, _Don’t push me away, please, please…_ She didn’t. She inhaled deeply, let out a sound that sounded like a strangled sob, pressing in closer to him. Now they both smelled of nothing but clean, orange-scented soap and the faint sharp whiff of a liniment Sixleigh had applied to the worst bruises.

It felt like all either of them could do that night was cling to each other in his bed, holding on for dear life. They ended up doing the same the next night, even if their patrons seemed a little less violent than that first night.

Their lives alternated in a strange cycle. On the one hand, there were the parties and galas where people wanted nothing more than to be escorted by them, or even just have them show up as a couple to give the event just that extra dash of celebrity glitz. On the other hand, there were the nights where they came back to the Training Center bruised and bleeding and broken. One part of the Capitol wanted to worship them like gods and the other part wanted to possess and break them as slaves.

“Maybe it would have been better,” he told her the fifth night, “if we weren’t together. Or at least, if they didn’t know about us. Maybe then we’d have people who want to just adore us and fuck us, rather than destroy us.” The people Snow hired them out to sure didn’t treat them as Taffeta said, as if it was a privilege. They usually treated him, and Johanna, like they were district dirt to be ground underfoot.

“I don’t know,” she said tiredly. “I can’t be sorry for it. Ever.” He couldn’t regret it either—even for all that joy might have cost them. He reached for her then, and it hurt to realize that he was scared now of touching her and he hesitated to see if she was OK, if she wanted to say _No_. He needed her so badly he ached with it, wanted to wipe away some of the bad memories. The terror that she wouldn’t want him now was acute as anything. But after a moment, she kissed him, saying, “Yes.” 

He thought it might have been even more awkward than the first time, watching each other to make sure it was all right. But it felt so wonderful all the same, because she looked at him the whole time, seeing him for himself, touching him all over rather than just shoving him down to get right to the sex. She didn’t just treat him as an instrument for her own selfish use—she touched him too, giving pleasure back as readily as she received it. 

It was so slow that he saw the first hints of dawn coming in through the window as she finally guided him into her. Careful and steady, he tried to give her back something of herself, loving her as best he could. He saw a tear or two trickling from the corners of her eyes as she arched against him, gasping, and his throat felt tight as he rasped out her name, nuzzling her neck. They hadn’t taken this from them entirely. They were perhaps bent, but not broken, and so long as he had her—not just the feel of her body, but the constant of her arms around him and her voice talking to him and her steady presence beside him—he felt like he could somehow manage to face another night.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Games were entering their tenth day and it was down to the final eight. She and Haymitch were playing handball up on the roof where there was no surveillance. Throwing the ball at the forcefield and using it as a rebound, the two of them just burned off some of the restless energy. Better here than going for a walk with the shouted questions and cameras that would be there the minute they stepped outside the Training Center. But she felt like a prisoner because of it—they had no need to go to Games HQ, so the only time they left was for something in their appointment book. Tonight would be one of the better nights, though—just smiling and looking pretty for some movie director’s party.

Flipping the ball with a neat turn of her wrist, she heard it bounce back with a crackle of discharge, and Haymitch raced to snag it on the fly, joking, “You’ve got a wicked throw, you know that?”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she said, knowing they sort of were and sort of weren’t referring to her axe buried in Aurelia’s back and his knife in Severus’ throat. It was like the elephant in the room—something not entirely avoidable but not really something they wanted to acknowledge openly.

Blight and Clover found them up there, and she was surprised to see the Nine victor. “I fucked up,” Blight admitted, as Johanna caught the ball one last time, gripping it in her hand. “I didn’t see all the angles on it during the Victory Tour. I’m sorry. Strategy, it’s not always my strong point. But Chloe and I finally saw the way of things right now.”

Glancing over at Clover, Johanna waited. Haymitch asked, “What’d you screw up?”

“Didn’t realize the full repercussions of this little romance you two have,” Clover said, heading over to sit down on one of the stone benches. “He was right it chased off a lot of the people that would have bought a night with you because they don’t want to interfere with a couple they love being together. But it means your patrons are pretty much the worst ones possible.”

Haymitch snickered tiredly. “Yeah, that just left the ones who don’t give a crap. The ones that think the two of us, and what we have, is a challenge. Something they’ll enjoy destroying if they can.” That sounded about right. If the people who hired them for parties had hired them for sex, it would have been inane and stupid, but easy. They would have wanted it romantic, but because she and Haymitch had each other, that whole group had backed off. It wouldn’t have been about humiliation and corruption like it was now, because the only ones that would pay for their bodies were the ones who had no cares for something fine and beautiful, and even enjoyed destroying it.

“Snow’s probably making up for the loss in revenue by hiring anyone who’s willing to pay,” Blight acknowledged.

Haymitch gave another of those sharp sarcastic laughs. “He’s got two of us to hire out as opposed to the usual single victor, and we’re doing three or four parties a night when we’re not being fucked bloody, so you’d think he’s coming out ahead already.”

“You messed with his plans and he’s going to make you do whatever it takes to make up for it,” Blight said sharply.

“Does he have any limits to what he’ll let them do?” Johanna asked, thinking of what she’d endured already, alarmed at the thought of it somehow getting worse.

“Nothing that’ll result in permanent injury,” Clover said with a shrug. “That’s about it.”

“If there’s any good news,” Blight offered hesitantly, hazel eyes apologetic, “it’s that it’s usually the romantics that hang on to victors long-term and keep them on the circuit. The sadists get bored quickly enough because the novelty wears off, and they can’t escalate it past a certain point.”

She couldn’t say she enjoyed that answer, but at least she appreciated the honesty in it. “All right then,” she said quietly.

Feeling cold even in the summer sun, she watched Blight and Clover as they left, seeing Clover’s hand slip into Blight’s with a comfortable familiarity. That was when she finally understood. She and Haymitch were hardly the first victors from different districts to care for each other—it seemed natural that it would happen sometimes, given that understanding about the ordeals of the arena. They were just the first where it had been public. And Blight Arnesson might claim he wasn’t as smart as her and Haymitch, and maybe that was true when it came to foreseeing all the consequences of something, but she knew he wouldn’t be stupid enough to make his own relationship public and let it be turned against him.

She and Haymitch had seen opportunity on the Tour, but it seemed they’d grasped it in such haste they’d seized it by the blade and now it had cut them. But the thing was done now and she couldn’t turn him away anyway. He was the only thing she had that made it bearable.

That night’s appointment wasn’t being brutally fucked by some of the Capitol’s sleaziest. Unfortunately, she found out that while Troilus Fisher was a movie director, they weren’t there for a party like she’d assumed. They were expected to smile and look pretty on camera, all right. But wearing fancy clothes and mingling and laughing at stupid stories wasn’t in the cards. Instead they were naked, on some overblown bed complete with tasteless satin sheets and bright harsh lights hanging overhead, and they were expected to fuck each other for the cameras. “We call it a ‘pay-to-view’ feature,” Troilus explained, beaming at them, his eerie blue face making the whites of his eyes look an ugly yellow. “People are simply salivating to get one from you two!”

The goodwill wore off quickly. His impatience and temper rapidly increasing and his tone turning more and more ugly, Troilus kept directing them, telling them that she should be on top because nobody wanted to just see Haymitch’s ass between her legs, that she should lean back more to show her breasts, that they needed to move slower and more gracefully, that they should touch each other more. “You’re madly in love!” he exploded, coming over and shoving her down by the shoulders, grabbing Haymitch’s hand, putting it right on her face, almost mashing it there. “So fucking each other should be the most natural thing for you! Start acting like that rather than giving me this awkward kiddie shit.”

“Sir,” one of the people on the set said, a man with numerous tiny glossy brown braids and pale blue eyes. She thought she recognized him as being an aide in Mentor Central, one of the people who took the shitty job of running victor errands and the like in hopes of having an in-road later to Central Command as a junior Gamemaker. “Why don’t we take a short br—”

Troilus gave an impatient snort. “Fine, Heavensbee, you try to talk some sense into these two. You’re here as their _official representative_ as per the filming guild rules, so do your job. Like I need a babysitter on my own set. I’m not hurting them…it’s not rough trade, OK? I don’t do that stuff.” Sounding almost offended, Troilus stomped off, bellowing, “Take ten! Our little diva victors aren’t in the mood.”

Heavensbee approached them as Johanna climbed off Haymitch, instinctively trying to cover herself. She saw something in his expression she’d never expected to see on a Capitol face—a trace of regret. “I’m Plutarch Heavensbee,” he said quietly. “Are you all right to go on with this?”

She heard Haymitch’s suppressed laugh, knowing he was thinking, _We don’t have a choice._ If they refused, she didn’t doubt someone in Seven and Twelve would pay. “We’ll get by,” he said. Plutarch looked like he doubted it, but he nodded and stepped back.

They sat there the entire time, barely looking at each other, and she didn’t know what to say. Finally Haymitch leaned over. His hand rubbed her between her shoulders for a moment and his voice was thick with awkwardness and shame as he said, “This is gonna happen so let’s just get it over with. Give ‘em what they want.”

It was the longest night of her life, in many ways—worse than being beaten and humiliated and tormented. This took what she had with Haymitch and cheerfully shat all over it in a way even the most brutal rape couldn’t. Because now the cameras stole this from them and handed it over to a voracious audience to devour, because now they had to act a part with each other, because now the Capitol left the two of them no safe refuge of anything that was only theirs. Trying to keep the pain and rage from her eyes because the cameras would see it, she leaned back to show off her breasts and moved on him, slow and graceful, feeling his hands on her. She didn’t lace his fingers through hers like she would have if it was just the two of them. She couldn’t give them that one last thing. 

Later, they fucked each other desperately in his room, exhausted and numb but needing to try to overlay the wound with something real. It didn’t chase the whole experience away, and she didn’t know it ever would. She felt the loss like she’d been stabbed in the heart. Being whipped bloody two nights later didn’t hurt nearly as much. That was just her body, not her soul.

At the end of the 51st Games, Two’s Brutus Allamand was the last tribute standing, though people murmured in disappointment that he was boring because Spinnaker died of hypothermia rather than giving an epic final fight, and the pay-to-view of the “Second Quarter Quell’s star-crossed lovers” apparently shattered multiple records.

~~~~~~~~~~

He thought that he would never feel clean again, and he could never regain what they’d taken from him. But of course he had to keep it quiet, so he kissed Johanna goodbye in front of the ever-present cameras, resigning himself to eleven months without her.

Then he got on an eastbound train, the only survivor heading back to Twelve once again, accompanying the remains of two kids in their immaculate silver-and-white Capitol coffins. He’d cleaned and stitched their cold dead flesh with his own hands down in the tribute morgue to make them presentable for their kin. Blight and old Woof Jones showed him how. That was just one more thing that told him that the kid who’d told Johanna last summer that he couldn’t sew, as she stitched up his arm, was gone forever.

Back in Twelve, he handed out the goodies he’d brought back for Ash and his ma. A bit of candy for Ash, some silver silk ribbon for his ma. He brought books, mainly. The selection in the Capitol was a bit better than what he’d been allowed to order from Twelve, although he was sure what he’d brought back was still entirely pro-Capitol and censored like anything. But his ma tucked the new offerings on the bookshelf in the parlor like they were precious treasure. What books they’d had before she’d gotten from a man at the Hob who was apparently sweet on her. Obviously that came to nothing since she’d never remarried since his pa’s death.

He forced himself into the woods with Ash some days, recognizing he was no longer welcome with Burt and Jonas, and even that was causing a wedge between him and Briar, and he’d rather spare her that awkwardness. True also that it was easier to not cling to the kid he’d been. But acute as his unease was, watching for mutts or for the distant mountains to start spewing fire, Ash had to learn those skills, in case he was reaped. Even if he wasn’t, once Ash was eighteen Haymitch couldn’t support him anymore—he was sure the Capitol would prevent it. Those traps and arrows would help Ash feed his family someday. 

Besides, Ash was quiet enough and that was a good thing. Aside from his habit of wanting to know _why_ everything was the way it was rather than just dealing with it, his brother didn’t chatter idly, like the constant stupid prattle of the Capitol people.

They brought back two rabbits, which he knew would probably find their way to the Seam as part of Madga’s salary for coming in and cleaning house twice a week. As well that happened, since the Abernathys didn’t need the meat and the Folkstones did.

But when he thought back to the Games, to Larkspur and Dean, to the pain and shame of being whored out, at the loss of Johanna again for nearly a year, he found himself at Thal’s stall again, buying another bottle of white liquor. A few sips were enough to make it pleasantly fuzzy, though he made sure he didn’t get dead drunk, and he chewed some wintergreen candy before heading downstairs for a meal to cover the smell on his breath. He did it again three days later when it seemed like too much. Just once or twice a week when it was particularly bad—it would be his little secret, added to the hoard of them he guarded so jealously.

Then he came back from a fiddle lesson with Mol one day and found his ma waiting for him on the front porch. Ash was still in school for another two hours, so it was just the two of them. “Thal says this isn’t the first time you’ve bought from him,” she said without preamble.

“Nope,” he said. He’d gone through three bottles between the Tour and Reaping Day. Three bottles in six months wasn’t that much. Admittedly he’d gone through one already in the month since he got home. But it figured Thal would rat him out.

She sighed, rubbing a tired hand over her face. “Hay, honey, this ain’t the way to deal with things.” She looked at him with an expression of worry.

“I’m not drunk,” he protested sharply, suddenly wounded in a way that he hadn’t anticipated. “You think I’m gonna be like _him_?” They both knew whom he meant: Blair Abernathy, the drunk, the wife-beater. “That it, Ma?” he pressed on, feeling like he’d been betrayed by one of the few people he could trust. “We already know I’m violent, now you’re worried I’m gonna turn into a drunk and starting smacking a woman around? Hell, I killed two girls in that arena, didn’t I? So I’m worse than he ever was. And what, you look at me and just you see him?” He could barely stand the feel of his own skin and soul now, filthy as he was, so why shouldn’t she loathe him too? “Nice lump of coal right off the old Abernathy seam,” he taunted, wishing he could just disappear. It didn’t matter if they fought out here. Nobody was in the Village but them and the occasional Peacekeeper patrol, and whatever surveillance the other victors warned him that the Capitol had wired up inside the house wouldn’t work out here.

“Dammit, you’re nothing like Blair, that miserable bastard wasn’t even your father,” she nearly shouted, her own temper riled now too. That got his attention and he stared at her, wide-eyed, as she forced herself to calm down. “What did they do to you in the Capitol?” she said, voice barely above a murmur, looking at him as if she was about to cry. “It ain’t just the Games. I know you, so _what did they do?_ ”

He shook his head, scared and ashamed at being so easily read, but at the same time, wanting to do nothing more than go to her and bawl into her shoulder, feeling like somehow she’d make it better because she was his ma. But he wasn’t a little kid anymore and life didn’t work like that. “Nothing. Just mentoring’s a shitty job, Ma. Two dead kids, you know? The Taylors and the Gordons ain’t exactly loving the sight of me.”

“Bullshit, Haymitch Abernathy, don’t you lie to me.”

“Apparently I’m not even an Abernathy for true,” he snapped at her sarcastically. “So what the fuck am I, Ma?”

Her eyes met his, direct and unapologetic. “Here’s the deal. You tell me, I tell you.” 

For a moment he felt a spike of fear stabbing him in the heart. Was her secret on that as dangerous as his? But he knew her and he knew she wouldn’t quit now until he told her what was the matter with him. So he told her, in as sparse words as he could. “They—President Snow. He…he sells me. And Johanna. And other victors. If we don’t do it, he’ll hurt people we love.” But it didn’t stop there. It couldn’t, because a wound, once opened, couldn’t stop bleeding until it was done. He found himself telling her about the pain and the pay-to-view and all of it, though he kept out some of the worst details.

Shy to do so, he looked over at her and saw the tears on her face, but the look of absolute fury was unmistakable. She hugged him tightly. “You shouldn’t…oh, honey, no, not that, not for me…”

“You did it,” he argued. “Been at least a dozen years now you’ve been enduring visits to Head Fog just to keep me and Ash alive, ain’t it? Probably longer.” He dared to look up at her now, summoning all his resolve and the shredded remnants of his pride as he said, “My turn to keep you safe now, Ma.”

Something in her face fell, and a flicker of fear entered in. She took a deep breath as if bracing herself for some kind of onslaught. “Don’t give me more credit than I deserve, Hay. Phin…Phineas…Head Fog and me…that’s not what you think.”

Realization exploded in his mind like the fireworks they’d shot off in the Capitol for the opening ceremonies of the Quell. “He’s my father,” he said flatly. The other kids taunted Ash and called him _Peacekeeper brat_ sometimes, and Haymitch beat the crap out of them for it. But he was just the same as Ash, even if it didn’t show as openly in his coloring. 

She’d slept with their Head willingly. He didn’t have to ask about that. She loved the bastard, and it felt like acid poured on his own wounds. His ma, whom he’d kept in mind for years as the steadfast image of how to endure hardship because she’d always had it worse, and struggled with his own sense of responsibility on how to help alleviate her own woes, had not only willingly fucked the enemy, she’d _fallen in love with him_. 

He turned and walked away from her before he could say or do something unforgivable in his betrayed and confused outrage, though he heard her calling for him. Thankfully, once he got to the Hob Thal gave him a bottle on credit because Haymitch’s wallet was back at the house.

He ended up out at the slag heap. It was still early afternoon and so none of the local kids were here yet for some kissing and cuddling, and he was thankful for that. Last thing he needed was to see Briar with Burt right now, or something like that. Lying there with lumps of rock and coal fragments pressing uncomfortably into his back, he took another swig of the white liquor. 

Everything was just a lie now. The only thing that was true was him and Johanna and the Capitol was going to deny him that, so what was the fucking point to it all?

The tread of heavy boots—Peacekeeper issue—came to his hearing. “We here to do some bonding?” he said mockingly, knowing just who it would be, glancing up to see Phineas Fog there. 

He’d been so stupid all these years, figuring Fog just gave him and Ash candy because Ash was his kid. Those books his ma claimed came from her Hob admirer—they easily could have come from Fog. He thought about other little things that sometimes appeared, soap and candles and white sugar and the like, never so often or so grand as to attract any suspicion from the neighbors. She’d lied to him, made a fool out of him.

Fog stood there in that damn crisp white uniform with the black rank stripes. He’d been about forty when he came here, Haymitch guessed, and near to twenty years later, his dark brown hair—same as Ash’s—was now mostly grey. His olive skin could have been Seam, but the golden brown eyes weren’t. “Nola told me,” he said bluntly.

Haymitch hated him for that casual use of a nickname that made it sharply obvious just how intimate he and Magnolia Abernathy had been. “And?” he drawled.

“And what? You want to take a swing at me?”

He laughed. “I do that, someone else pays, huh? You probably can’t execute a victor.”

A vaguely amused grunt answered him. “So if you want to hit me, keep it off the face.” He could feel the lethal potential in him, boiling up in rage. He wanted to hit this man, kick him in the groin so he’d never touch her again, wanted to use the half-empty bottle in his hand and smash it into him over and over again. But that wouldn’t wipe it out. He’d still be what he was, and it would have all still happened. 

“Well, this has been fun, but…” He pushed up off the slag heap, dusting off his clothes and walking past Fog as if the man didn’t matter. It was the only way he could think to deal with it.

“She told me,” Fog insisted again. “About the Capitol.”

Now he turned on his heel, really tempted to hit him. “She had no ri—“

“She wanted to know if there was anything to be done. There isn’t. You know that, I know that.” There was a cold, severe kind of fury etched in the lines of Phineas Fog’s face, an expression he’d never seen there, and it startled Haymitch to recognize it wasn’t directed at him. “I know how it is dealing with the Capitol. Been doing it since I was a kid. You keep them happy and keep your mouth shut.” 

“Oh, please, you in that uniform of yours,” he scoffed, not wanting the man to try and offer any kind of solidarity. “You come here and flog people and pretend you’re suffering? You asshole, you flogged me when I was twelve!”

“You walked out from that damn fence in front of four Peacekeepers with a grouse in your hand. I didn’t have much choice. Flog a few people who flaunt breaking the rules a little too much to ignore, send in a few reports, and it keeps HQ and the Capitol off my ass,” Fog shot back. “Ignore everything and they start asking questions because no district is going to be a little utopia where everyone follows the rules.” He cocked his head and stared at Haymitch directly. “You know a thing or two about the minimum of obedience, don’t you?”

“Don’t try to claim you’re on our side.” He smirked. “She may love you now, but I doubt she came to you at first out of the sheer romance of that pretty uniform. You hire whores. That makes you one of them.”

“It’s not the same as what they’re doing to you. I always gave her a choice, even at the earliest when I’ll admit I paid her. But I never forced her. Never threatened her. Never beat her, which is more than I can say for that drunken shit she married.”

“You’d rather she just openly have your little Peacekeeper bastard for everyone to mock like they do to Ash? Have them make fun of her as your little kept woman?” He knew his ma and his supposed father had their toasting only about six months before he came along. “She married him to give me a name because oh wait, you couldn’t give her one, could you?” That twisted in his heart too as he realized _that_ had been a sacrifice she’d made for him. She’d married Blair Abernathy to keep her son safe, and she’d suffered for it.

“No, I couldn’t. You do your twenty years in the ranks and then it’s twenty more if you go for a position as Head, all without marrying or having a family, that’s the deal. And as Head it’s not like you can fraternize with your subordinates. Besides, you can’t give that girl of yours, or any children you have, a name either, can you? Maybe people will know they’re yours, but you can’t be there for them. As for being a kept pet, well, they think that about you and the Capitol already, huh? You really want to wonder why she and I kept it quiet all these years?” Haymitch opened his mouth, closed it, finding no smart rejoinder to that, particularly with the weary edge Fog gave to it. “What the hell’s this place done for her? Even your own damn precious Seam looks down on those worst off down in the west end. She’s too smart for these people, too gutsy, too willing to do what she has to do. Always has been. You and Ash get that from her.” The open, fierce admiration and affection in his voice was undeniable. 

Suddenly he could see it all too clearly and he hated it—the secrets, the pretense of whoring because a Peacekeeper paying for a starving woman’s body would be far more acceptable to both sides than the idea that they actually cared for each other. The more he thought about it, the more it became the realization of two lonely people finding some kind of solace in each other that they couldn’t among their own, and it was so familiar and unwanted an echo of himself and Johanna that it was almost unbearable.

“Why are you here?” he asked again.

“I didn’t know the Capitol was that bad when it came to victors. But I would kill Snow right now if I could,” Fog said simply. There was a savage note to his voice that Haymitch actually believed, remembering the fighting skills of District Two. “I can’t, though. She asked me to see if I had advice for you on how to deal with the Capitol.”

It galled him to take advice like this, but he realized that Fog hadn’t pressed him, hadn’t imposed paternity or made any kind of claim. That was a delicacy and respect he hadn’t expected, and after being harshly claimed by so many Capitolites, it was kind of a relief. Besides, if the man had successfully hidden a romance and two kids beneath the Capitol’s nose for the better part of twenty years, obviously he knew a thing or two about how to play the game. “Let’s have it.” Pride wasn’t much next to the realities of survival. The arena, and the whoring, had taught him that.


	6. Chapter 6

Johanna lied and smiled and said she was OK when she got back to Seven, and it had just been a tough Games. Her parents looked like they didn’t quite believe her, but they stopped pressing her after a few weeks, and she finally managed to scrape it together enough to do a better job of pretending.

Bern got married that winter to Nyssa Roberts, one of the carpenters’ daughters, cementing his place in the ranks of Seven’s artisans. She offered to pay for his wedding, but he shook his head. “I’ve got to live my life like I’m just plain Seven, little sister, and you’ve got to live yours as a victor,” he said gently, but decisively. She understood, though it felt like a rejection of her as too dirtied by the Capitol, though she really was. 

Heike wasn’t reaped the next summer, and neither was Ash. Sawyer lasted three days, Trina thirty minutes. Haymitch’s two, Josie and Willem, were both dead within two hours. The cycle started up again. Sixleigh kept lecturing them about rough sex. Haymitch told her that his mom had figured him out, and she bitterly resented him for a minute having that refuge. “Do you think I can tell them?” she said hesitantly, whispering into his ear while they were in his bed. They usually ended up in the Twelve apartment. That way Blight had privacy down on the seventh floor if Clover came to visit him. 

“Can you trust them to keep it totally secret and not go on the warpath against Snow?”

“I don’t know.” She could imagine their fury, and she feared their shame in her too. Lyme Rathbone of Two won the 52nd Games, and she headed home again, where people treated her like more of a Capitol collaborator than ever, given that she’d been to even more parties and been featured on even more cameras.

Rhus married Berthe Jones that winter. Johanna was invited but she sent her regrets. Bern and Nyssa had a little girl, Mina, in the spring, with Bern’s brown eyes and Nyssa’s beautiful coppery skin. Heike shyly confided she had a boyfriend, and Paul came over to dinner often after that, and her parents gave permission for Heike to go north with the Nordenheims to lumber camp next summer, rather than having to tag along with the aunties and uncles now that Petra and Gunnar Mason were retired. Haymitch told her his old girlfriend Briar had married his former best friend Burt that spring, and that his apparent father, Twelve’s Head Peacekeeper, had finally had to retire back to Two. The Gamemakers made the Cornucopia “interesting” that year by releasing mutts at the starting gong. Only five tributes escaped the initial melee, though all four of theirs were casualties. 

One’s Jasper Shirani emerged the victor of the 53rd, though it took three weeks and people muttered how boring it was. In the final days they openly sought other diversions, and Johanna spent the last five days of it hired to hang on the arm of Leo Gold, a professional hoopball player, and the rumors swirled that she and Haymitch were breaking up.

When she got home, sickened by the idea that the nation now thought she was just arm candy for some muscle-bound Capitol idiot—that _her own parents_ maybe thought it—she told them on a walk out in the Memorial Grove to visit her grandparents’ trees. Terrified, she made them swear to do nothing about it, and she could tell they were reluctant and outraged, but they agreed. At least they knew, and they still loved her, even if she could sense that sometimes they still didn’t know how to handle it.

The years wore on. Heike made it to eighteen and eluded the reaping and married Paul, moving to a house near Cutter’s Row. Bern and Nyssa had a son next, Tomas. Haymitch told her that Ash had a girlfriend, and then three years later, Ash too was suddenly getting married. Seven seemed to slip further and further away from her each year as she grew older and no longer was contained within the rhythms of district life—summer in the logging camps, winter in the mills. She missed Haymitch constantly. Saying goodbye to him for another eleven months and heading home with two coffins to see the faces of two grieving families was the low point of every single summer.

Each year brought more quickly dead tributes, Games that people seemed unsatisfied with after the spectacle of the previous ten years. The occasional sexual patron still, though the demand had lessened, and now it seemed to be more people hoping to woo her away from Haymitch with ever-more fabulously ostentatious displays of wealth and overdone romance than the sadists it had been initially. She learned to act flattered, even as she knew they wanted the sass of her asserting herself just enough to make it a challenge rather than telling them openly how much she hated them. It got tougher and tougher during those few weeks of the year to untangle her openness with Haymitch from suddenly going to the tightly closed-off professional persona she used with her patrons, giving them nothing real. 

But they were still popular for the cameras, and there was a swell of support for them, because they remained mildly news-worthy. The star-crossed lovers of the Second Quell quietly doing their duties and still hopelessly loving each other and no one else made for an enduring, bittersweet story that the Capitol loved. 

These years of boring Games, with Career or accidental victors, meant that the Capitol was starved for anything involving romance or drama, and she and Haymitch still provided a spark of that.

Then at the end of the 59th Games, after Nine’s Rye Laaksonen survived purely by eating grass as Chantilly’s girl, the One female, finally starved to death, there was a call for a change in Head Gamemaker to bring back the glory days of the Games. In the days that followed the victory trumpets, Rye lay in the hospital getting pumped full of nutrients and she heard about some unrest in the streets, petitions to President Snow. 

They were up in Haymitch’s room, sleepily drifting off in each other’s arms, when the phone rang. Haymitch reached over and picked it up, mumbling, “Hello? Yeah, hi Yelena, she’s here too,” he said, obviously so Johanna knew who was calling. Yelena Farthingale was Snow’s assistant in charge of Victor Affairs—an ironic title she and Haymitch always snarked about. A phone call from her had always meant an appointment somewhere. Haymitch sucked in his breath sharply. “Yeah. We’ll be ready.” He hung up the phone. Rolling back over, he glanced at her, grey eyes showing his concern. “Snow wants to see us.” He hadn’t talked to them since their first year, except the occasional polite public exchange at his Victor Social every single year for mentors to chase down new sponsors. If the president wanted to see them, this was serious. Already Haymitch threw back the covers, telling her that she’d better get up and get moving too. “He’s sending a car in half an hour.”

~~~~~~~~~~

He was a grown man of twenty-five now but the thought of going back into that oppressive office with all its stern magisterial atmosphere made him feel like a sixteen-year-old kid again, facing that cool predatory stare right in Snow’s lair. He remembered feeling unnervingly like he might not walk out alive in some ways. The man didn’t even have to pretend to be human there because there was nobody to fool or impress, and no cameras to record it.

A private chat with Snow couldn’t be a good thing. So even as they hurried through the shower—Johanna pushed the buttons, Haymitch had never bothered to figure the damn thing out—and got dressed, both of them shot each other the occasional worried glance. Neither of them asked if the other had done something amiss to attract his attention, but the paranoid feeling that they must have screwed up somehow was right there, tracing an icy prickling finger of fear down his spine.

There were a few cameras waiting half-heartedly for any victors leaving the Training Center, but with the flurry of the Games done and the newscasters focused on the discontent with the Games, it was muted. They answered a question or two without much thought, didn’t bother fighting off a photographer, and slid into the backseat of the waiting car. He had to fight the urge to clasp his hands in his lap so as not to touch the immaculate white leather seats, as if he was still some grubby-fingered coal miner. That was ridiculous, because he wasn’t the filthy one. But white leather—so impractical, so extravagant—just one more way Snow flaunted his power and prestige. He had enough in his life he could probably replace the damn seats after this one ride Haymitch and Johanna were taking for the three miles from the Training Center to the Presidential Mansion. The perfume of roses, which he hated now because of the mockery of Snow giving them a bouquet on the Victory Tour, seemingly celebrating having brought them to heel, filled the car thanks to cut flowers in a pair of small crystal vases beside the windows. Johanna clicked the controls for the windows and cracked them open, and he gave her a grateful look at that. They couldn’t just toss the damn roses out the window like they had on the train years ago, but the fresh air helped.

He helped himself to a scotch from the small backseat bar while he was at it, tasting the smoky sweet burn of it in the back of his throat. Hell of a lot better than what he’d tasted there the night before with one of his patrons, and at the thought of it he poured another scotch as if to burn away the memory with the searing heat of the liquor. Johanna sighed and took one too, tossing it back in a hurry. “Liquid courage,” she muttered, resting her hand on his knee. Not playful or seductive like it might be at other times, but gripping hard.

Snow wasted no time once they arrived and stood in front of that damn desk again like errant children. “It has, no doubt, come to your attention that there’s been a…certain displeasure with the Games of late.”

“Yeah, I’d noticed,” Haymitch said dryly, too into the snark that the Capitolites enjoyed hearing from him, immediately regretting it when that cold, stony lizard stare bored into him. 

Snow continued on as if there had been no interruption. “There will be a new Head Gamemaker next year, of course.” Haymitch found Johanna’s hand in the folds of her skirt, concealing it from Snow’s eyes, and clutched it tight. What was Snow going to do? Purge all the victors because aside from the Careers, nobody else ever won without a wild streak of luck, and thus everyone but One, Two, and Four was a failure as a mentor? He couldn’t imagine the mines now, felt a bit of panic at the idea of going back down in the tomb-like darkness like he’d had to do for those few weeks as a kid, before they cut off using kids down below the surface. Immediately he felt a hot sensation of shame. He wouldn’t go down the mines, not even then. After all, Ash had already made mining engineer, in part because of his brains and, Haymitch suspected, in good part because his social standing had been elevated by having a victor for a brother. His wife, Dora, was Dougless Cartwright’s little sister—with any luck, Ash’s kids would be merchies of some stripe, not miners, because Dora wasn’t seen as having married down like most merchie women would have for marrying a Seam man. But Haymitch still had former friends down those mines, working their asses off to make captain or face boss or something finer than just another grunt swinging a pick. Clearly Haymitch had gotten soft, and spoiled; Capitol-touched and Capitol-ruined. “They congratulated your valiant efforts this year as ever, Mister Abernathy.”

He’d begun to hope this year. Kyle Reeves hadn’t been much to begin, but he’d managed to get a rock and use it against Woof’s boy from Eight, and suddenly Kyle had himself a blanket and some food for the night courtesy of the sponsors. He’d made it to the final five before Chantilly’s girl took him down. “Next year, perhaps,” he said neutrally, trying to think of an answer Snow would like, something the man might actually say in response to that. Mostly he didn’t want to discuss to discuss how the Capitol clucked and made excuses for him, as if it was poor Haymitch for having such lousy tributes, rather than the reality of their own loathing and scorn for two small, underfed kids who had nothing but some brains and pluck if they were lucky, but few skills.

“They pointed out, correctly, that you’re our only remaining solo mentor,” Snow said, sitting back in his chair and crossing his legs. “Perhaps in the early days it was a necessity, but given there are far more than twenty-four victors now, that does put you at a disadvantage, particularly when your tributes are already…how shall I put it…” He waved a hand through the air as if trying to grasp the correct word. “A much tougher challenge,” he said finally. “So in the interest of leveling the playing field, you’ll receive a second mentor.”

He managed to bite back his instinctive derisive snort—as if the fucking Hunger Games ever had anything fair about them, as if a second mentor would help starving and scared kids up against Careers. “I see. Who’s being seconded?” The Careers had plenty to spare. He just hoped like hell it wasn’t Maeda, given what an absolutely useless piece of work she’d been for him.

Snow’s gently greying eyebrows rose abruptly. “You’re usually far more perceptive,” he chided, as if amusedly lecturing a silly child. “Miss Mason will be your new mentoring partner. Mister Ollenheim will be recalled to work with Mister Arnesson as the two Seven mentors.”

That was hardly fair, given that the Careers had spare victors coming out their ears, but he couldn’t be sorry for that choice. He just didn’t know what the catch might be, but there had to be one. He felt Johanna startle next to him. “It makes sense, I suppose,” she said, her tone too neutral for her death grip on his hand. “They enjoy seeing us together.”

Snow smiled, and that was more terrifying than anything. His lips were puffy and too red as ever and Haymitch wondered once again if the man actually wore lipstick, or if it was blood. “It’ll be a lovely story for the entire nation, of course. The star-crossed lovers finally are given their happy ending.”

“I’m not following,” Johanna said, and Haymitch was right there with her. 

The smile grew even more horrifyingly wider. “Congratulations, our soon-to-be Mrs. Abernathy. You’ll be the first district citizen granted immigration status since before the Dark Days.”

 _Mrs. Abernathy? Immigration status?_ Realization burst in suddenly. “We’re getting married and she’s moving to Twelve?” he blurted out, far too stunned to hold it back.

Snow gave an indulgent, almost paternal chuckle. “Clever boy. That’s more like it. Yes, you have my blessing. And of course you’ll permit me to handle your wedding during the next Games, won’t you? An event like this comes, well, only once in a lifetime and beyond.” 

Dazed, they agreed that after Rye’s victory interview, there would be a special broadcast where Snow announced the happy news. Haymitch would propose to Johanna there. They would be married in the days leading up to the next Games, she would take the empty chair at the Twelve station beside him as his wife and his co-mentor, and she would move to Twelve after the Games were over.

The bitter galling taste of it was almost unbearable. _I didn’t even get to ask her to marry me. We got told it would happen._ Oh, he would have asked her years ago if they could have, but at the moment it felt like just one more thing snatched away from him and claimed as a Capitol right. Snow would tell everyone they were getting married before he’d even allow Haymitch to make the gesture of asking her. Fitting that Snow should throw them the wedding. Nothing of it was theirs. They were just the props in someone else’s show.

“Sir,” Johanna said suddenly, “please…my parents.”

“Yes?” That merry twinkle was still there in his eyes.

“They’re retired from the logging crews, and they’re definitely too old to go back now.” They were at least fifty by now, he realized, remembering some of the signs of age already when he visited Seven on the Tour. Ten years of retirement probably meant they were better off than other lumberjacks of their age, but going back to rough, demanding work like that meant they wouldn’t last too long. “If I leave Seven, they can’t stay at the house in Victors’ Glade…and my brother and my sister have families of their own to worry about now. I’m the wealthy one so I should be the one to look after them. Please,” and he could almost sense how it shamed her to plead with this man, “can they come with me?”

Palms pressed together, Snow touched his fingertips to his lips thoughtfully. “And what will you do for me should I grant you such a favor, Miss Mason, given I’m already making your dreams come true?” he asked lightly. The transition from cheerful benevolence to implied iron-solid demand was immediate. 

Johanna’s shoulder blades stood out beneath the thin silk of her dress. “Anything,” she said in reply, with a harsh edge to her voice. “I’ve already given you everything you ever asked so what do you want now, my firstborn?”

He would have laughed at the joke because Snow really made a perfect fairy tale ogre, but he immediately feared she’d stepped too far over the line with that comeback. Snow’s expression, like a man who’d just had a brilliant revelation, was even more sinister. “Perhaps. After all, I imagine people would so love to see a child from their beloved Quell victors now that they’re finally happily married.” He shrugged lightly. “Or perhaps not. We’ll leave that to public opinion in the future as it develops.” He tried to not shudder at that. The present was hard enough to handle right now. “But trust that your debt on this will be called due in time, Miss Mason—and you as well, Mister Abernathy.” He wasn’t surprised Snow folded him into that neatly with the expectation of him complying. He also knew he would do it for her without question, and he knew that Snow knew it also. The implication of Snow holding that over them, ready to call in the debt at any time, didn’t sit well. Nobody in Twelve liked owing, and least of all to a man like Coriolanus Snow who knew just how to twist the knife and bleed the most out of a person in repayment.

They went to the roof of the Training Center for the privacy as soon as they were back, because on the way he could barely look at her, let alone speak to her. To marry her, live with her together all year round—everything he’d dreamed of through so many long lonely nights with only her memory and the touch of his own hand to keep him company. But it had been turned into a sham like everything else. 

Stunned still at the news, he didn’t quite get why Johanna seemed almost grimly amused as she said, “Mom and Dad always told me…don’t take a stranger’s gift, huh?” She kept giving little half-chuckles that sounded almost like she was laughing rather than letting them turn into panic or rage.

“That’s good advice,” he acknowledged. “But if there’s a joke in there, Hanna, I seriously ain’t getting it. The only one really laughing is Snow.” Old bastard probably was laughing too, at how he’d got one over on the two of them again, and how he’d profit by all this besides.

She shook her head, calming down now as she looked over at him, brows furrowed over her whiskey-brown eyes. “You’ve heard the rumors about how he got to power.”

“Yeah, of course. A lot of Capitol people always get chatty over drinks or an orgasm,” he said sarcastically. “And sometimes they even say something interesting. Besides, you and I both have smelled it on him—the blood.” He’d heard plenty of gossip about how Snow had poisoned his rivals and now had sores in his mouth that would never heal as a result of drinking the poison himself.

As kids they’d picked up the scent. Fresh off the arena, how could they not? But they hadn’t yet had the context for why Snow smelled like that. That funny little smile was on Johanna’s face, the one that didn’t reach her eyes at all. “It’s a pun we have in Seven, Hay. From German…it’s one of the old languages, and there were a lot of people who used to speak it in our area. For them, the word ‘ _Gift_ ’ actually translates to ‘poison’.”

Now he finally got the joke, and knowing Seven humor thanks to Johanna helped. _Don’t take a stranger’s gift. Don’t take a stranger’s poison._ He let out a sharp bark of laughter, thinking it was the perfect advice for the gift Coriolanus Snow had just dropped on them. Like most things from Snow, it held poison in it. 

“He’s doing it only for the publicity, of course,” he said calmly, because reasoning it out made it easier to grasp. “They need something novel and compelling to shut them up and make them obedient again. So he’ll give them this. He’ll give them us. I imagine he’ll make a killing off the wedding, more than he’ll ever spend on it. It’s brilliant, really.”

Her voice was rough as she said, “I never wanted it to be like this, you know.” 

Hand under her chin, he lifted her face and looked down into her eyes, hurt and angry and maybe a little afraid. “I know. Though whatever his motives, at least we’ll have each other now. I won’t have to go eleven months each year without even talking to you. But I’m not going to fucking well owe him anything for that, though. My mouth might say it because he demands it, but I won’t be saying it in my heart.” He shook his head, wrapping his arms around her, bowing his head and whispering in her ear, “Because you’ve got the whole damn thing, you know.” His heart was the only thing he had left to call his own and to give freely, and he knew she’d keep it safe.

~~~~~~~~~~

In Caesar’s studio, right after Rye escaped the stage, Snow made a broadcast from his rose gardens that was projected to the studio audience, and the rest of the nation. Standing in the wings, Johanna couldn’t see the screen fully, but she could imagine the sight of the repellant man standing there among his roses, probably beaming with goodwill. “I’ve heard the people’s concerns, and I assure them that everything will be done to make the 60th Hunger Games, and beyond, the worthy competitive event that they should be. To that end, one change is to be made to the mentorship of District Twelve.”

Haymitch stood there, shoulders drawn so tight beneath his coat she worried he might burst the seams of it. The crowd reacted with enthusiasm as Snow announced that “extraordinary circumstances” made him give an exception to the rules for “these two deserving young victors.”

Haymitch looked over his shoulder at her, giving her a cynical smile. “You know, nobody likes the people who always keep getting the special exceptions.” He was right. It made them seem spoiled. It made it look like they were Snow’s favorites, when she knew that was anything but the case. The Capitol might adore this, but some people in the districts would likely resent them for not being held to the same rules, driving even more of a wedge between them and the people they ought to hold closest. So even as she walked out on stage with her arm in Haymitch’s, into the bright studio lights and hearing the joyful roar of the audience in greeting, she felt that swell of anger stirring within her again. 

He knelt down, head bowed over her hand as he took it—and that hurt, seeing him in that melodramatic, submissive pose. She’d rather he’d have just held her hands in his and stayed on his feet as her equal. But there was an expected script and they’d follow it. Beaming happily, she accepted the marriage proposal from the man she loved with all her heart. But in that moment her heart was full of rage and misery rather than the love of him.

Back home, it went smoothly enough with her parents, because at least they knew what was going on with Snow. Though of course she sensed their confusion at yet another upheaval, and then she invited Bern and Heike over to let them know. “They’re going to Twelve with you?” Bern said incredulously. “The president likes you that much, huh, Hanna?”

“Bern,” Heike said, shaking her head. “Think about it. What can you or I do for them? We married well, that’s true. We probably owe that to Hanna.” It hurt to hear her little sister say that, but there was a grain of truth to it. The Masons’ social standing had climbed high by having a victor. Paul and Heike had left logging and essentially been adopted by the Spielbruchens, the grocers whose only son Andy had died of pneumonia. Her brother was a carpenter and her sister a merchant. They’d made it out of the poorest classes of Seven. “They’ll lose the house once she leaves because it belongs to the victor, not their family. They can come live with us, that’s true, but money will always be tight. We’re both raising kids now. Hanna can look after them better than we ever can.”

Bern shook his head, and there was weariness and apology in his tone rather than rage. “It’s just…shit. We’ll never see them again. My kids aren’t gonna know their Oma and Opa like they should, you know. I was looking forward to them being some of the few kids in this district to have that. And…Hanna…we won’t see—”

“I know,” Johanna said, a lump in her throat. She moved over to give Bern a hug, feeling the fierce strength of his big, solid frame as he hugged her back. “I know. But the president told me what was going to happen, and I can’t exactly refuse, can I?” She said it lightly as she could, trying to not let her brother and sister see just what a gilded prison she lived in thanks to Coriolanus Snow.

Over the next year, people in Seven treated her with even more of a polite remove. She was no longer theirs, really. She was Twelve’s, and next summer she’d be trying to keep a miner kid alive rather than a lumber one. She lived among them but even more than ever, she knew she’d irrevocably broken from them. She only feared that Twelve wouldn’t exactly embrace her either. Haymitch told her that the distance had grown between him and his people too. So she boarded the train for the Capitol with two kids she wouldn’t mentor, tried to forget their names, and apologized to Cedrus for dragging him out of retirement. Unlike most brides, she didn’t look forward to her wedding day.

~~~~~~~~~~

Her wedding dress was white, which was the first time in a decade Haymitch had seen her dressed in anything but green. It was a monstrously overdone thing of ruffles and lace and beading and the like, a fairy-tale princess’ gown. On someone else it might have been beautiful, but he knew Johanna and he knew she’d have preferred something simple and elegantly tasteful. As was she looked like a stranger.

They’d put him in a tuxedo and a shirt with ruffles as well, fancier even than his usual frock coats. Dressed entirely in white as well to match her, he felt ridiculous, but wearing that color, wastefully impractical and falsely innocent, for a playact of a Capitol wedding felt right in some ways.

The civil ceremony in Snow’s rose gardens was short and simple. She carried a bouquet of roses that Snow had personally handed her, and their fragrance filled his nostrils, making him want to vomit. He’d have rather given her the simple, plain gold band every married couple wore in the poorer districts. But that wasn’t good enough. They’d at least let him pick the ring. He’d steered away from a monstrous gaudy diamond. She wore a gold band with small bits of emerald and black diamond inset all the way around in alternating black and green—Seven and Twelve united together. They might cover her in his district colors now and move her to the east, but he wouldn’t expect her to ever forget who she was and where she had come from. She looked at the ring and he hoped she knew that it was from him, not the Capitol. Of course then they’d insisted on making his ring match. 

Everything, from the music to wedding colors—what the fuck did a wedding need official colors for anyway?—to the cake to her dress to his tuxedo, was something the Capitol voters had selected over the winter in a series of contests. The only things not on that list were Snow’s roses and the rings. He danced with his wife and ate a bit of the too-dry cake that was all about its looks rather than its taste. He danced with the guests who’d probably paid through the nose to get in for the wedding and reception. He knew they were hawking memorabilia for this out in the streets right now. Snow would more than make up whatever money he’d put out for the wedding, and he’d earned so much in the intangible of goodwill besides.

Then a car took them to the Regal, the Capitol’s finest hotel—what the hell they had a hotel for when nobody ever visited the Capitol was beyond him. It was used more for receptions and parties than as a place to stay. But he’d been here a few times for assignations with patrons, so he supposed other people probably conducted affairs here. The staff certainly acted like they’d been taught plenty of discretion. And he knew they had a honeymoon suite and it was considered a bragging right to have passed that first night as a married couple there.

He wondered in the elevator ride up just how many other couples had spent their wedding night there and how it had turned out for them. The suite was overdone and gaudy, and somehow he wasn’t surprised that along with silk carpets and velvet curtains and gilded wall fixtures, there was a camera crew sitting on the sofas and chairs, waiting for the stars of the show. Maybe he’d gotten too used to this whole life. At least now he and Johanna knew exactly how best to fuck for the cameras and they’d get it over with in one or two takes and it would just be done already. “What’s the plan?” he asked the director, trying to keep the weariness out of his voice.

“This will be your best one yet,” Troilus Fisher said, almost capering with glee.

“Yeah, we know the Capitol will never have seen anything like it,” Johanna said, slanting Haymitch a look, a brittle, sharp-edged smile on her face. “Let’s get to it. I want out of this dress.” A few ribald chuckles answered that, but he knew what she meant. She wanted out of it and to never see it again.

He wished he could forget the cameras and focus only on his wife as she became Johanna Abernathy in every way now, but he knew if he did, Troilus’ imperious voice would be in his ear soon enough barking about how he’d screwed up some shot. So he made sure the cameras could see their new rings at every opportunity. He lingered over everything lovingly. He’d seen a few pay-to-views now himself, given he had patrons who wanted to watch them to get aroused before getting down to business. The videos they wanted from him and Johanna were different from the hard fucking and threesomes and the like that was the usual fare. The degrading stuff always took place off-camera for them. For the cameras, for the paying public, it was all romance and affection and soulful lovemaking. Not that he wanted to tie her up and beat her, but there wasn’t much real about it either. He knew what sex with her was really like, and sweat and urgency and the slap of skin and graceless moves and laughter and awkward sounds were all part of the joy of being lost in the moment and lost in each other. But the Capitol viewers didn’t want that. So they acted out a fairy tale, all sweetness and gentleness in artful lighting, romantic whispers and slow graceful moves.

She gasped and trembled like a shy virgin beneath his kisses and his touches, this woman who’d endured hell beyond imagining. And in kind, he acted too like an innocent schoolboy rather than a man who’d been harshly tutored by the arena and the most brutal kinks a sick mind could conjure. 

After the cameras left, they showered and clung to each other. He couldn’t bear to touch her again that night for sex. Her new wardrobe came to the Twelve apartment the next day. Now they dressed her in black to match him, with the occasional accent of Seven green.

She took the mentor chair beside him with a guilty glance towards where Cedrus now sat beside Blight. As they waited for the signal letting them know it was only a few minutes until the countdown, they nibbled the breakfast pastries as usual. “I’m sorry,” Johanna said to Blight as he reached for a muffin, with a nod towards Clover at his side. He knew why she apologized. She had what he wanted—to be with the one he loved, who was from another district. Snow had bent the rules for her, but Blight was still stuck.

“Don’t worry about it,” Blight said, shaking his head. There was a trace of pity on his expression. Haymitch realized then with a sickening feeling that the other victors felt sorry for them, caught up in Snow’s web as they now were, and the focus of so much Capitol attention. Turning away from that sight, he dashed a bit of whiskey into his coffee.

Surprisingly, more sponsors were willing to throw money towards Twelve this year. Whether that was Kyle’s success last year, the romantic angle opening wallets as well as hearts, or the hope that a second mentor would help, Danny and Joley went in with a handful of small sponsorships. Still nothing at all compared to the Careers, but it was better than he’d done on his own. Effie Trinket, the new escort for Twelve, annoying as hell, kept telling him that it was probably more than the tributes deserved. “But if someone wants to make a hopeless bet,” she’d chirped, “who am I to stop them?”

“Blow it all on basic supplies if they make it away from the Cornucopia,” Johanna said bluntly, looking at the accounts on her screen. “It won’t buy either of them a piece of bread by day five, you know, and those two seriously need all the help they can get.”

 _They’re yours now too, not just ‘them’_ he thought with a flash of irritation, and he was a little irked too at her coming in and just throwing orders around. “Thank you, darlin’, I’ve never done this mentoring business before,” he said sarcastically. Not like he’d struggled to do it all by himself for nine years of Games.

She gave him an angry look, and reached again for her headphones, switching to Joley’s feed. It startled him to think that he only had to monitor Danny to start.

Danny and Joley both ran like he’d told them, and within half an hour, a package with some basics like matches, a knife, and water purification tablets drifted down. “Well, it’s something?” Danny said, though he looked uncertain what to do with it.

“It’ll go far,” Joley answered him. He watched them, two fifteen-year-old Seam kids huddled over that silver parachute, and started to hope that they could hold out.

Danny and Joley lasted six days and got several more sponsors before the Career pack made short work of them. Four days longer than the Seven tributes nobody cared about, they finished eighth and ninth—not his worst showing by any means, better than most years in fact, but still just as dead. Quick as they’d both died one after another, it meant the Final Eight interviews that year were actually a Final Seven. Four’s Lateen Solis was the last tribute standing.

They boarded the train to Twelve, a pair of newlyweds on their honeymoon journey to her new home in Victors’ Village, escorting a pair of dead kids on their journey to their new home in the tribute cemetery.

~~~~~~~~~~

“They hate me,” she said tonelessly, kicking the door shut behind them. All those carefully polite faces watching her arrive and the Capitol camera crew right there to record the moment Johanna Mason Abernathy arrived “home” as Haymitch’s bride and their new victor.

And why not? Why shouldn’t they resent her? Any woman in this district would have been glad to catch Haymitch’s eye. He was a wealthy man who could provide comfortably for a wife, who wouldn’t leave a widow with small kids by risking his life every day at work. He was a handsome man who’d grown from that wiry frame to become sturdy and broad-shouldered, a man who looked his twenty-six years rather than aged before his time. But instead of one of their own daughters benefiting from Haymitch’s position, an already-privileged outsider had swooped in and stolen the prize from under their noses. Done it to the point where President fucking Snow had bent the legalities out of the goodness of his heart, just to make their dreams come true. 

Never mind that Snow did it just to get more of an iron grip on them both, to have one more thing to hold over them forever by granting them small concessions and expecting grateful compliance. Letting two of them survive the Games had been just the beginning. Letting them marry now just tightened the noose. But the people here didn’t know that. All they saw was a spoiled outsider once again taking more than her share of the pie. _You will never belong here_ , those stony grey eyes told her. She could live here and try to save their children from the Games, but they wouldn’t forget that she had been singled out to imply her little romantic hopes and dreams were so very important as to warrant a presidential intervention to make them come true, when most people couldn’t even buy enough bread to feed their kids.

Her other hand was clenched in a fist at her side even as she’d waved and smiled. _I need him, I understand him better than any of you will,_ she told them defiantly in her mind. _I earned him. He earned me. You don’t want to go through what we have._

He shook his head with a tired smile, and maybe he wasn’t physically broken down but in that moment he seemed terrifyingly old for his years. “Oh, hell, Johanna," he said softly. "Maybe it would have been better..." He trailed off. She didn't know how he'd end it. Better if they hadn't fallen for each other? Better if they'd kept it quiet? Better if they'd died in the arena? Well, that last one was almost certain. "We’ll get by,” he said finally. “It’s all we can do, right?”

Looking at him, steadying herself, she nodded. Once the camera crews left for the train station, quickly bored after getting the final obligatory shot of Haymitch laughingly sweeping her up into his arms and carrying her across the threshold of his house, finally they were alone. Well, as alone as they could be given that his mom and her parents now lived here too, but it was a big house.

Changing out of their fancy traveling clothes and heading downstairs, it was easy lighting a fire together and toasting a slice of bread, good bread from the local bakery thick with cinnamon and fruit and nuts. They fed each other small pieces of it, grinning ruefully over burned and sticky fingers. 

The apple trees, roots still firmly wrapped in burlap, arrived after lunch, and they planted them in the garden. Their parents and Ash and his wife Dora were there, but she missed Bern and Heike for this Seven ceremony. She remembered thinking during the Victory Tour how bare the backyard looked without trees. Transplants from another district, just like her, unfamiliar and foreign ways too. But at least his mom and brother were warm and welcoming as always.

She stood there in the garden with dirty fingers and a lucky blue kerchief around her hair, butter and jam and coal stains on her skirt, and Haymitch looked every bit as casual and shabby himself. This was a far cry from the bride on Capitol television in the sheer mockery of virginal white silk that had inspired some slyly bawdy comments from Claudius and Caesar, and all the pomp and circumstance and expense that had gone into the ceremony. Snow had spared nothing, making it the wedding of the century just to dig the barb of it in even deeper. But she was sure he’d recouped most of it from whatever profits he’d have gotten for the tickets from the guests, and from the pay-to-view tape of their wedding night.

“We need to just put it away, Hanna,” he advised her that night as she finished unpacking some of her things. There was a whole heap of wedding gifts downstairs in the parlor from Capitol well-wishers, and it made her ill to think of someone here in Twelve having to tote them to the house from the train station and probably deeply resenting the spoiled Capitol brats they probably figured lived there. “We did what we knew was necessary. That’s what we always do.”

“I know,” she answered him calmly. At the touch of his hand on her shoulder, tentative and cautious, she turned to him. His arms went around her and she pressed closer, feeling the flicker of desire now for the first time since she found out that they weren’t going to be alone in that honeymoon suite. She’d been too tired during the Games, too focused on trying to do the best she could for those two hopeless little black-haired Twelve kids. Whoring was one thing, but to have the Capitol claim every piece of their wedding from the cake right through to the consummation had left her feeling filthy on a whole new level. It was worse than the usual pay-to-view, because that night in particular should have meant something. 

“Hey,” he said, holding on to her just as tight. “That day was theirs. Today, that was for us. That was our real wedding.” His grey eyes met hers, steady and determined, and she was relieved to see the growing heat in them. “Tonight’s ours too.”

“Well, the house is familiar, but…not the same room, not the same bed,” she murmured, remembering that cold winter night nine and a half years ago. His mom had insisted the two of them take the master bedroom now. Her parents had given them the hand-carved cherry wood bed that her grandparents had made as their wedding furniture, and the dresser they’d made themselves.

He gave her a soft, slightly lopsided smile that she knew was genuine rather than the cocky smirk the Capitol so loved. “Not the same us either,” he told her gently. Turning, he dug in the drawer of the nightstand. But rather than some kinky toy or the like which she’d have expected from one of her patrons, he took out something else. “Here. I know I ain’t from Seven and you’ve probably got high standards on it. But if it’s not too crappy, maybe you’d like to…” 

She took the wood pendant strung on a leather thong. The rich well-polished glow of mahogany in the shades between amber and coffee told her he’d spent some money on it—that was a luxury wood they harvested in Seven, but it was all exported to One. Stealing it was punishable by execution, and even a tiny piece for this pendant wouldn’t have come cheap. 

The interlaced spirals, which she remembered were something they used here in Twelve, would have taken plenty of time with such tiny tools. One little slip would have wrecked it. Surprised, she saw what looked like a maple and oak leaf in the design too—the same design that was on her family’s wedding furniture. “You remembered that?”

“I saw that furniture of yours on the Tour and you told me that was some kind of family design for you.”

She shook her head, amazed he remembered something that minor even years later. “How the heck did you get the design to someone in One? Don’t get me wrong, they do nice enough work there. It’s lovely.” 

He didn’t answer and she looked up to see him with a slightly sheepish expression. “Shit, _you_ made this?” Now she remembered he’d mentioned taking up woodcarving as one of his hobbies. Apparently he was good enough they could make some piece of wedding furniture of their own. It wasn’t Twelve, but she’d feel more at home if they could. 

“I went through a lot of mahogany over the winter trying to get it right, trust me,” he said wryly. The notion that he’d spent all that time painstakingly making something for her that was this personal, rather than just buying something from One like everyone from the Capitol probably had, helped soothe her against all the anger and outrage. 

She pulled the necklace on over her head, feeling it start to warm against her skin already. She reminded herself that tonight was theirs, and every day and every night until next July 4th. 

Then taking a deep breath, she pulled her shirt off, standing there in front of him, hands on her hips, inviting him into her space to continue it. He smiled at that, neatly answering it by tugging off his own shirt before he came to her. “Leave the necklace on,” he told her as he leaned down to kiss her.

~~~~~~~~~~

He knew the adjustment must be tough for all of them. Among the merchants and the miners, the brown eyes and hair and golden skin of Johanna and her parents stuck out like a sore thumb. Unfamiliar voices and accents, unfamiliar culture—they were coming in as the ultimate strangers. They wistfully talked about things he didn’t even know like the hand-carved ornaments they’d brought for a New Year’s tree. He didn’t have the heart to tell them yet that unless he paid extra for it to be delivered, there would be no holiday tree because the woods were off-limits. They’d found that out fast enough when their coal allotment arrived rather than firewood.

He did what he could, knowing that flaunting his ability to fix things with money probably only made him look all the worse, but he had to try to make her feel like this could be home. He went to Liam Mellark’s bakery and asked his wife Perulla if they could bake some Seven-style bread to make the Masons feel more at home. Describing the dark color and the sour-sweet taste he remembered from the Victory Tour, he headed home that afternoon with two warm loaves of it tucked under his arm. She brightened up and said it was just like home, though he didn’t quite believe her. It was a little too sweet.

A month in, when they were headed into town again to buy groceries, he saw that people at least nodded politely enough to her in acknowledgment. But as the wife of someone they didn’t much embrace anymore, he doubted she’d exactly have a warm circle of friends, and he regretted that. She stared across the Meadow towards a high post of the fence and gave a deep sigh that turned into a guttural sound of frustrated annoyance. “They _never_ let you out into the woods?”

“No.”

“It’s killing Mom and Dad,” she said. “They’re not used to this. We could always walk in the woods while we were at lumber camp so long as we were back for work hours, and there were woods within the boundaries of the winter town. We had the Memorial Grove and all. They’ve never been this far away from a forest.” He looked towards the rolling mountains and their green carpet of trees, and tried to think of it like her. So close and yet so far, kept away by the boundary of an electric fence and all the danger and consequences that implied. He noticed she didn’t mention how she was coping, or not, with the matter. 

“We could ask Snow,” he said doubtfully, already hating the suggestion. “But…it would probably be a march through the woods with a tracker bracelet and Peacekeeper guards.” That would probably destroy any rest and peace the Masons would get from the trek.

“There’s also no telling what Snow would expect in repayment for it,” Johanna answered, shaking her head. “Besides, I don’t want to be the special exception to the rules yet again, right in front of your people.” _Yours_ , he noticed, not _ours_. That said plenty. “They like the Meadow, though,” she added, reaching out and putting her hand on his arm, “and maybe if we planted a few more trees in the backyard…it would make it better.”

“We’ll do that,” he assured her. Whatever it took, he would try to do it for her. Seized by a crazy impulse, he told her, “Follow me.” Glancing around and seeing no Peacekeeper patrols right there, he headed for the west edge of the Meadow. Relieved to see the fence still sagged in that one spot, he tested the wire, breathing out a sigh of relief to see it was off. He hadn’t been out in the woods since Ash was fifteen and told Haymitch he had it covered by himself when it came to the trap line.

Ducking through the fence, he held a hand out to her. “What the hell are you doing?” she asked, even as she climbed through nimbly.

“Taking you for a walk,” he said. Maybe her parents were a little old for fence-dodging like this, but seized by the moment, he only had the thought that maybe this would lift her spirits. Maybe it would make these woods that had haunted him ever since the Games more bearable. He trusted her with his life. She’d kept him alive in that other forest and all its dangers, and that kept the dread at bay. Looking at her face as they walked, seeing her come alive out here among the green rather than the grim grey of the district, he felt it too. Her obvious pleasure reduced these woods to green leaves overhead and their cool shade, the singing of mockingjays and other birds calling to each other. Even the rustle in the bushes here and there made him think _Probably just a deer_ rather than _Mutt_. It was a forest again, rather than a potential horror.

Sitting down near a berry bush, they picked them one by one and ate them. He enjoyed the fresh tart-sweet taste of wild blueberries for the first time in years, the burst of flavor so much better than the ones from Eleven’s farms. She looked at him and laughed. “Shit, Hay, you’re like a little kid gobbling those up.” She grinned and her own teeth and lips were tinged purple, and he laughed, pointing at them. She stuck her purple tongue out at him, tackling him down to the ground even as she laughed in return.

He’d been in sheets that probably had about a million thread count, but as he dozed beside her, feeling warm sunlight and a cool breeze and soft summer grass on his skin, this felt better than any of that ever had. He thought he’d remember the look of her skin in dappled sunlight filtered through the leaves, different from the look of it through window glass. Holding her tight, nose buried in her hair and breathing in the scent of it, he felt happy. It was a startling feeling, bright and fierce, unfamiliar after so long. For so long he’d identified “not miserable” as the same thing as “happiness”, and with this one moment, he saw now how wrong that was. 

“There’s no cameras here,” he said, with a slow sense of wonder, finally identifying what had given him that strange new feeling as he touched her. “No microphones. Just you and me.” They’d never had that. In the ten years that he’d known her, in all the times he’d made love with her or talked to her or laughed with her or had a meal with her, they’d never truly been _alone_ together. The sheer freedom of it felt exhilarating and terrifying all at once, like venturing into some completely unknown territory. There was no need to act or pretend or censor their words and actions. With that plus the fact that he wouldn’t need to bid her goodbye again, and instead he could expect to wake up with her every morning for years and years, it felt new all over again. 

Funny how the last forest he’d been in with her had been a prison where he felt the nation’s eyes on them. Right now he knew this forest could never again be like that one in his mind. He’d thought long ago that it would be Briar that he pressed down into the grass like that, but now he couldn’t see anyone else but Johanna there. He hid a smile as he thought that at least one frustrated and wistful dream of that sixteen-year-old boy had finally come true. He was out here with the woman he loved in the secrecy of the woods, and in some ways, it felt like it had been the first time. 

She opened her eyes and lifted her head from his shoulder. “I know. It was…it’s never been like that.” Her eyes locked with his and he could see that same sense of astonished joy there. Then a whimsical smile played about her lips. “So, you’ve actually got chest hair.” She ruffled it with her fingers curiously. “I should have figured—I remember you had just a little on the Tour, but…” But that had been about a dozen sparse hairs back when he was sixteen, and every time since then that she’d seen him naked, he’d been waxed down for the patrons.

“Uh, you want me to shave it?” he asked, a little embarrassed, wondering if it had prickled her or something. Maybe she didn’t like it.

“No,” she said with a fierce glare. She stretched out in the sunlight, without a scrap of self-consciousness or shame. “What, you want me to shave this?” she inquired archly, gesturing down to the patch of dark hair between her thighs.

“You’re a woman, Hanna, not a little girl,” he answered her, propping himself up on an elbow, feeling how ridiculous it was that the Capitol tried to keep them looking halfway like children now that they were closer to thirty than twenty. “I want _you_. As you are.” He was under no illusions she wouldn’t be remade in the Capitol image again next summer, just as he would. But until then, he meant to keep the Capitol out of this as much as he could. 

She nodded at that. “I wish we could stay out here forever,” she said wistfully, fingers stroking the grass for a moment, plucking up a few blades and scattering them in the breeze. He saw she had a bit of grass in her hair where it fell down over her shoulders. “Build a cabin or something.”

He wished that too with an intense longing. It would be so hard to go back in the cage after tasting these few moments. He also knew the risk they took sneaking through the fence. They couldn’t do it constantly, and he kept in mind Fog’s warnings about how flaunting anything in front of the Peacekeepers wouldn’t be a good idea. The new Head, Gallus Cray, was even more hands-off than Fog had been. But while Fog had apparently done it as a deliberate strategy, planning the whole thing out to keep it running with as little damage to everyone as possible, Haymitch got the sense that Cray didn’t care for much of anything beyond liquor and young desperate Seam women. Still, lazy as he was, Cray wasn’t bad. He was far less of a bloodthirsty terror than Fog’s successor, Marcellus Dulcet. Dulcet had loved the lash and the gallows, and nobody had been too sorry when he suddenly died last year. So long as they were careful, there should be no danger, and he needed this after so many years of loneliness and pretending. They both really did. 

“Once a week,” he said, heart racing with something that was both fear and excitement. “We should come here once a week.” Come wintertime, they would have to keep the clothes on, but simply getting out and having some secrecy and time away from all the demands and the lies would help. “Just a few hours where it’s only us.” He reached out and started plucking the blades of grass from her hair, combing it through his fingers, but that only turned into her pushing him back into the grass, making use of what time they did have.

Creeping back to the fence near sunset, they made sure no Peacekeepers saw them in the purple twilight. He thought of the look on her face out in the woods, peaceful and happy. He’d get her that holiday tree even if it had to come on the train, and damn the cost and damn how people would probably gossip about Haymitch Abernathy throwing money around like it meant nothing. He’d keep buying her bread from the Mellarks. He kissed her one last time in the Meadow, feeling like a man given a reprieve after a long endless sentence in prison, and he thought maybe they could make this work.


	7. Chapter 7

When the times were sweet, they were sweet indeed. For the first couple of years, it seemed like more than enough that she had Haymitch for her own now, both in Twelve and in the Capitol, because the demand from their patrons finally quit. They had to do the occasional pay-to-view still for those who couldn’t get enough of the Abernathys, but even the last romantics hoping to woo them away from each other realized they’d lost out. She couldn’t say that was happiness, but it was the least stress and misery she’d had at the Games since their first year as mentors.

Though not much else changed in terms of the tributes—after the one-year spike of hope, the sponsors seemed to realize once again how much of a long shot the Twelve tributes really were. For the 61st, Roseanna and Tobias were dead in twenty minutes, and eventually Seven’s Gretel Warbeck won out of sheer dogged endurance and a tree-branch club, becoming their second female victor. So Cedrus could go back to his husband and his rocking chair now, and she was glad. She felt guilty immediately at the pride and relief in her heart at that, given how brutally her own two tributes had died, and she felt the fear for Gretel as a new novelty to be tasted and passed around. She reminded herself it was Blight’s job, not her own. Her loyalty was to Twelve now, especially on-camera. 

62 was even worse, a bloody year where twenty tributes died in the first day and Two’s Enobaria Reska won by ripping the throat out of the One boy with her teeth. The Capitol cheered, because she might be a Career, but it had been anything but boring. The newscasters talked excitedly about how the Games were experiencing a new renaissance under Corvus Kanonovich’s tenure as Head Gamemaker, as the arenas seemed to grow ever more fabulously nightmarish and the mutts and arena disasters all the more deadly. 

She couldn’t help it. Seeing Gretel painted up and out on the town, and the misery in her expression, she stepped in to offer her what quiet advice she could. “Oh, shut up,” Gretel said bluntly, looking at her with fierce, defiant eyes that didn’t fit her childish face. “We both know I’m just your replacement to them, in bed and out. Don’t pretend like you give a shit about Seven now that you’ve gotten your little happy ending with Haymitch.” 

Stunned, angry and hurt as well that this little idiot bought into the Capitol lies so easily, she snapped back, “Then fuck off and good luck to you, kid.” Storming past Blight who was busy chatting with Clover, she told him, “You’d better do a better job explaining how things really are to your new little genius, or I’m gonna rip her pretty head off.” She had enough sense of being judged in Twelve. She didn’t need it in Mentor Central as well.

She laughed bitterly the following February at the latest edition of _Countdown to the Cornucopia_ when the 50th Games arena was once again voted as the standard for “perfection”, with its fierce physical and psychological obstacles all rolled into one unbearably lovely package. Haymitch looked up and said dryly, “Bet we win ‘Best Tribute Alliance’ this year.”

“Foregone conclusion,” she said with a snort of irritation. They won that award every year. She went back to writing another letter to Heike. If nothing else each summer Blight would carry letters from her and her mom and dad to Seven, and they would have a thick stack of letters from Bern and Heike, and a few precious photographs of their families. She watched Heike and Paul’s Sawyer and Bern and Nyssa’s Mina, Holly, and Johann grow up only in those snapshots. When Bern wrote that his son was named “Johann” she’d known he’d named him for her, to let her know that he hadn’t forgotten her.

All too often she felt closer to them, even in those spare letters and photographs, than she did to the people in Twelve she saw every day. They weren’t rude. They didn’t even resort to the petty tactics of overcharging or mysteriously being “out” of things she wanted. They weren’t stupid enough to not realize that could get them in trouble, if they imagined she would tattle on them to Snow, and she supposed the security of her money was more important to them than proving a point. And while they seemingly acknowledged that she and Haymitch gave it their all every single year, there was a frosty distant politeness that told her she might spend her money at their shops and walk in their meadow but she’d never, ever belong. She’d been foisted on them by a man who wasn’t one of their own anymore either, and by the distant hand of Coriolanus Snow. 

They tolerated her. That was the best that could be said of it. She didn’t think she had anyone to call a friend here, except maybe Ash’s wife Dora. No kids there yet, and she knew their mutual childlessness was something that bonded her and Dora together. She didn’t have the heart to tell Dora that in her case it was entirely deliberate and that she took a fresh Capitol contraceptive injection every month like clockwork. It would be casual cruelty given that she knew Dora desperately wanted kids, and she and Ash had been trying for several years now. 

But it wasn’t like Haymitch had friends either. Even the last of them, Briar Everdeen, had apparently finally stopped visiting when it caused too many problems with her husband. “The Capitol loves us and we play along with it, so what are they supposed to think?” Haymitch asked wearily the day after another special about their romance aired. She smelled wintergreen on his breath that night when he came to bed, and knew he’d been chewing candy he got from the Donners’ shop to cover the odor of whiskey.

“He drinks sometimes to manage everything,” Magnolia Abernathy had advised her bluntly when Johanna had moved in. “He’s been doing it for years. And I can’t spank him like a little boy.” She shook her head. “But I think that’ll change now that you’re here?”

It had for a while. She’d been enough for him and that first year of marriage had been as close to pure joy as she’d known in years. But not enough had changed, and it would never change. Whether she smelled wintergreen or whiskey, she knew he was buying from Thal Grey and trying to hide it from her. She felt him slipping away from her sometimes, and it sent her into a spiral of panic again. If he turned away from her she’d have nobody at all. She’d be totally alone in this place, so when she felt him start to open that gap between them, she wanted to grab him and yell, demand that if nothing else he _fight_. 

Heat and anger she could handle because that was coin she understood full well, and they burned out eventually. It was this hellish being frozen out that she couldn’t take, either from him or from the rest of the people in Twelve. After all, there were glaciers far, far to the north that had been frozen for thousands of years. Ice was relentless and enduring, and that unsettled her beyond bearing. The Games already stretched on forever in her imagination. She didn’t need the ordeal of slowly losing him and being forced to live here with the consequences.

~~~~~~~~~~

For 63, golden Cashmere Donovan from One charmed and slaughtered her way to the victor’s crown in a charming little village in the mountains that might as well have been designed for her. When Haymitch saw a twin brother interviewed during the Final Eight, he had the unsettling feeling they’d see more of Gloss soon enough. 64 proved him right, with Gloss taking the honors. The Capitol was almost hysterical with their joy over the matched pair of them. Gretel had proved a one-year flash in the pan on the circuit, but Enobaria was popular, as was Cashmere, and he was sure Gloss would only add to that. He winced for the Donovan siblings as he knew full well that there would be the types that wanted them both, and there would be the really sick types that wanted to watch the two of them together as a matched pair.

Glancing up after the final cannon, he caught Johanna over talking to Blight, and knew that as soon as they got back to Twelve she’d be reading another stack of letters again before passing them on to her parents. It was the first thing she did upon their return, indulging in that little bit of her home and her family. The elder Masons seemed to grow more quietly miserable every year, cooped up as they were in Twelve’s fence. It was like watching the color slowly fade from something, making it more dull and grey with each passing year.

Watching her, he saw her laugh, animation in her face as the two Seven victors swapped some stories about home. She never looked like that in Twelve anymore. Even their weekly excursion beyond the fence had become so routine and silent, so pointless compared to the risk, that they’d quit it last fall. Neither of them had suggested calling it off. It just seemed like a week went by and neither of them moved to make the trip, and then one week turned to two, and then three, and then it became force of habit to just not do it. He remembered wrestling in the autumn leaves a few years ago, her laughing and stuffing leaves down his collar, and wondered just when the fire had gone out.

He should have figured he’d fail her in the end. How could he be enough? It was a case of one man’s affections against being uprooted and thrown into a new district where nobody knew her and thanks to her husband nobody was much inclined to draw her in as one of them. He wouldn’t flatter himself to think him loving her was worth her sacrificing everything. Love conquering all sounded real pretty in the fairy tales, and Snow had given them a fairy tale ending after all. But this was real life, not some bedtime story for children. 

He wasn’t enough. All he could give her was his name and a place she’d never belong, and two tributes every year that she’d struggle to save when they weren’t even really hers. If she’d stayed in Seven, after Gretel won, perhaps she could have retired from mentoring. It was a toss-up as to whether or not Blight would go first, but point was, the chance had been there and she’d missed it. Seven could produce a winner. Gretel was their sixth victor, remarkable for a poor district like Seven. He was Twelve’s second victor and he knew in his heart that wasn’t going to change anytime soon, barring fantastic luck. She was stuck mentoring doomed children, stuck as a stranger in Twelve, stuck never knowing her own nieces and nephews, stuck with a man she probably could only resent more and more with each passing year for getting her into this whole thing.

Closing his eyes, he tried to lock down the guilt and grief as he thought of the girl he’d loved so fiercely for all these years, knowing that it was his loving her that had finally taken away even what few things she’d had left to call her own. Turning away from her talking with Blight, he passed by the liquor table, well-stocked as ever, and swiped a bottle. It was vodka from Eleven, distilled from their potatoes. It would go well with orange juice. He tried to think exactly when orange juice became nothing remarkable to him, just something to mix with liquor, and when he’d become Capitol enough for that to be the case. He couldn’t remember.

Downing his drink, he headed for the Training Center, wanting to be alone right then. Funny how being alone hurt less right now, but it did. 

“Everything all right with you and Johanna?” his ma asked when they got back and handed over the coffins as usual. He wanted a drink the moment he saw the ravaged faces of this year’s families. He wasn’t sure whether silent acceptance or silent accusation was worse.

“Fine, Ma,” he answered, not interested in an inquiry. He loved and respected her as much as he ever had, but it was a pain in the ass even as it was a comfort having both her and Johanna’s parents living in the same house. 

“Haymitch,” she said, telling him with that tone that, as ever, she wasn’t going to quit.

“Leave off it,” he said between his teeth, tired from the train ride and aching for a drink and just wanting to be left alone more than anything. “At least for you, he had to leave before it could finally turn sour, so all you’ve got is good memories.” It was the only time he’d referred to Phineas Fog in years. Unlike Johanna’s family, no good way to play courier for letters between Twelve and Two—he and Brutus had a sort of a friendship, true, but he wasn’t sure Brutus’ loyalties to the rules would withstand the strain of hearing that Haymitch’s ma and the Head Peacekeeper had been lovers. Given she’d never taken up with any other man since, he could only conclude she still loved Fog, and it would have been cruel to flaunt his own situation with Johanna in front of her, just like he and Johanna were careful of Blight and Clover.

He couldn’t be alone in the house, seeing as Johanna had showed up and now there was Petra and Gunnar to greet them as well, and he said, “I’m heading out for a bit.”

Johanna’s eyes flashed with temper. “Gonna be back for dinner?”

“Don’t wait.” She’d be busy with her letters until the meal anyway, lost in the world that had been taken from her for his sake. It wasn’t like he couldn’t afford to skip a meal. The Capitol celebrity press very helpfully reminded him that it looked like he’d gained some weight in the last few years. Just one more thing that separated him from the rest of Twelve. Johanna had said it looked good on him, as opposed to the desperation of trying too hard for the “shirtless wonder” look. But that had been a while ago. Who knew what she thought now? He couldn’t even remember the last time they’d had sex. Probably at least a month before the Games, and it seemed all the more depressing that he didn’t know. He couldn’t even say when things had died off. It had just been a slow, gradual decline and suddenly here they were, barely speaking and avoiding each other. 

He pushed open the front door and headed out. To his surprise, he felt her hand on his shoulder halfway across the green, but it wasn’t a casual grab in the name of attention or even a caress of affection. It was a clawing shove that pushed him and turned him all at once, sending him stumbling and wheeling him around to face her. She stood there, glaring at him with fury boiling over in her brown eyes. “Our parents,” she informed him, “spent all day on that meal.” He knew that. He knew they always did because all three of them knew what a shitty time of it he and Johanna had at the Games, and they made the gesture out of love and concern. They couldn’t protect their kids, so they at least tried to do the next best thing for people who’d grown up poor—their parents would feed them.

He knew all that and he felt like an ass for seemingly treating it lightly, but he thought if he tried to eat tonight it would taste like ashes to him. “I’m not hungry, all right?” He just wanted to get away and find somewhere that he didn’t feel failure washing over him, looking at everyone he had let down.

“Yeah, you’re getting more and more on a liquid diet now, huh?” she mocked him, pushing her hair back behind her ears, chin tipped up at a stubborn, almost aggressive angle. He’d seen that look on her from the arena on, and knew she was spoiling for a fight. He deserved it. She had plenty of cause for anger with him and he ought to just stand there and take it.

But at the same time it hurt like hell. She was the one good thing he’d had, and to just let her be the one to wound him was too much. “Well, maybe if I fall and break my neck while I’m drunk you can go back to Seven,” he said irritably. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? I’m sure the Capitol will spin a great story from the grieving widow.” Some part of him realized self-deprecating and snarky as it had been, there was a veiled aggressive push to those words. He wanted to see what she would say to that, and most of all, he realized he wanted to hear her say that the idea of him dead horrified her. 

“I’m stuck in this hellhole,” she said instead with a harsh laugh. “They’ll never let me leave, don’t you get it? I’m the happy girl who was finally able to marry the man I love. I’m living my fucking _dream_ here with a bunch of people who think I’m just your spoiled little outsider wife!” She shook her head with a toss of her brown hair. “Some days I think it would have been better if you’d just left me to the Careers in that clearing and gone on your way. Or just cut my throat yourself like any other tribute would have done.”

He felt like he couldn’t even breathe, felt like he was bleeding out from his very soul. Better off dead than with him—not much mistaking that, unequivocal as it was. What could he say? There was no way to fix it, and apologies seemed pale and inadequate, like they always did to the tributes’ families. He’d wrecked her life pretty neatly. He desperately tried to find what dignity he could muster, even as he knew it was all in shreds, because what dignity could he have when she resented him like that? “Tell them I’m sorry, but I won’t be back for dinner,” he said, turning away again. Some part of him wanted to do like Nualla Clearly had so many years ago and go beyond that fence and just keep walking. 

But that was no answer to this either. It would just leave her with the burden of mentoring alone, and he knew how hard that was. They both agreed even his death wouldn’t free her now. So he headed for the Hob instead, hoping Thal was open.

~~~~~~~~~

Feeling cold suddenly even in the August air, she watched him walk away, feeling the lump of the words _Come back_ and _Don’t go_ and _Fuck you, I need you, don’t you walk away_ sticking in her throat.

Obviously he’d rather drink by himself than be with her, even after she accidentally ripped the wound open right in front of him by practically screaming at him how alone she was here. She felt him shutting that door on her firmly, shutting her out of his pain and his thoughts and his life, and she was terrified and enraged all at once. She couldn’t make it here without him. She’d flung her anger at him and met nothing but an implacable brick wall. At least if he’d fought her that would have been something, enough to show her that what they had was capable of moving him to _some_ kind of passion. But he’d rather be numb and isolated.

Feeling like she wanted to cry or smash everything in the house or both, she headed back to the house, cursing him because now she didn’t want to eat either, and humiliated because their parents knew they were fighting. At least none of them asked and they gave Johanna some much-needed space.

He didn’t come to bed that night. Aside from all-night hires with a patron, this was the first she hadn’t had him asleep by her side since they were married. She realized, lying there in the dark with the loneliness and fear and anger knotted up inside her, that the bed felt too big and too cold without him, not nearly secure enough. She dreamed of mutts that night, and woke up gasping. Padding downstairs for some water, she saw him asleep on the green couch in the parlor, and her heart broke a little more at one more step of rejection. They hadn’t slept together in weeks and now he wouldn’t even sleep with her in the chaste sense. Seeing he’d flung the blanket off—he’d always been a restless sleeper—she crouched and picked it up, carefully draping it over him again. 

As she turned to go, she heard him say softly, “I’m sorry.” She should have figured he’d wake up at her approaching him. With a few rare exceptions like that cold December morning after she’d sneaked into his room, both of them slept lightly now.

She stood there, debating whether to turn back. The painful knot of everything within her felt like it couldn’t withstand being around him right now if he was just going to evade her. But he’d been the one to make the first move here. So she looked back over her shoulder, seeing him half-propped. With just a few slivers of moonlight he was just shadow against blackness and she couldn’t see his face to know if he was watching her or looking away. Maybe he was sitting there wondering if she’d looked back or not.

Padding over towards him carefully in the darkness, she found the couch and sat down beside him. “For what?” she asked him directly, figuring she’d pursue the opening he had left here for all it was worth. She reached out tentatively, her hand brushing his, afraid that he’d pull away. But instead, to her surprise and relief, after a moment of hesitation he grabbed on, almost too tightly, as if he was afraid _she_ was the one trying to slip away.

She needed to see him, and so she turned on the light. After a few moments of it being too bright, her eyes adjusted. “For bringing you here,” he told her, not meeting her eyes. “To a place where you think you’d be better off dead than stuck here with me.”

He hid it, but she knew him well enough and she heard the pain laced through those words, wincing as she knew she was the cause. There were so many things she could have said, but she’d never been strong with words. “It’s not that I’d be better off dead than with you. I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that…we’d both have been better off if we didn’t come back, right?”

“The lucky ones are the dead kids,” he agreed with a wry little smile. “But here we are, alive.”

“I need you,” she told him, voice thick with the sheer emotion of it. “You’re the only thing that makes it bearable. The only thing I’ve got. And when you go away by yourself, when you’re drinking rather than coming to me, you shut me out and I’ve got _nothing_. I kept pushing at you to try to tell you I’m still here, I want you to not go, but…”

He made a low, rough sound in his throat. “I figured you hated me for bringing you here. You kept only being happy around other people from Seven and you kept snapping at me about everything like you just wanted to prove how much you resented me. If being here with me makes the one person that I’ve got totally miserable…what’s that say about me? I love you, but I don’t want to be the thing that makes your life beyond bearing.” 

How stupid they’d been, misunderstanding, shutting themselves away from each other. Words weren’t enough right now, so she reached for him, holding him close. His stubble scratched her cheek but that was all right, because she felt the warmth of him against her, felt his heartbeat. “You’re the only thing that makes it worth anything.”

“I just wish,” he said softly, “you could have chosen this.” Her heart broke a little even as she wanted to kick him for beating himself up like this for something he couldn’t change, and she felt stupid herself for not recognizing the weight of guilt he’d been carrying around on her behalf. Never mind that she’d never asked him to do it, he thought she had by how she pushed him away with her moments of temper and resentment, so that was equally her fault. 

“We did choose, Hay. We did, on the important stuff. You saved me, I saved you, and we decided we’d rather stick together than kill each other. I chose to sneak into your room that night, and you chose to let me stay, because we could trust each other above anyone else. We’ve been choosing each other ever since that day in the clearing, don’t you get it? Snow can’t touch that. So come to bed,” she whispered in his ear. 

“Yeah. It’s your birthday this weekend,” he murmured in return. She’d almost forgotten that. “Let’s go for a walk then?”

She nodded in assent to that, hearing what he meant by that. He wanted their marriage back and he wanted to be with her. He wanted to try again, and so she felt the soothing reassurance of that. They would be together and with that, they could keep withstanding even the worst of the Games. He followed her upstairs, and his hand brushed hers on the bannister. They barely managed to shut the door before he kissed her, and she could feel everything she’d needed in that kiss, everything they hadn’t been able to say. He was there and he was hers and he loved and needed her too.

Out in the woods, once again alone at last, he gave her a carved bangle for her birthday that matched the pendant he’d given her for their wedding, and suggested with that crooked smile of his that she ought to lie back for another birthday present. Letting him undress her and wearing only his ring, pendant, and bracelet, she complied, feeling the tickle of the grass on her skin. Then she felt strong hands on her legs, opening her up to him, and then a brief nuzzle on one thigh, and then there was that wickedly deft tongue of his at work, slow strokes of pleasure making her tremble and shudder, her fingers clenched into his unruly dark hair. She moaned something that might have been his name or might have been just wordless nonsense. It didn’t matter. 

They stayed out dangerously late, making love all afternoon, but for the first time in years she got to lie on her back, and see the stars from the forest, like when she was a child out at lumber camp. With him lying there beside her, she pointed some of the constellations out that she’d learned as a girl, and he told her what they called them here in Twelve. He’d remembered her telling him about stargazing—she didn’t even remember when she’d mentioned it to him. Of course, being naked out in a forest at night with predators around wasn’t the brightest idea particularly since the Peacekeepers tended to make sure the border fence was on late at night. Not to mention both of them were starting to glance around anxiously, remembering nights in the arena. So they hurried to get dressed and get back to the fence, and he stole one last kiss from her on the green where they’d been fighting.

“Stop putting on a show for the neighborhood and get your butts in the house,” her dad growled from where he was standing on the porch, “don’t you know how late it is?”

“Shit, Dad, I’m thirty-one,” she said, laughing even as she wanted to roll her eyes. He’d waited up to make sure they made it home, and presumably to try to deflect any Peacekeepers if that became an issue. She knew he’d never quit trying to fuss over her to make up for not being able to protect her, and in some ways, it touched her even as it frustrated her.

“So exactly what neighbors are we talking about?” Haymitch inquired archly, nodding around to the vast empty expanse of Victors’ Village, where as ever the Abernathy residence was the only house with lights on. That set them both off hooting and snickering.

Gunnar Mason grumbled, shook his head, and headed into the house. “Keep it down tonight, I’m trying to sleep.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Six weeks later Johanna was throwing up almost daily and crying and yelling at the smallest, stupidest things. She slept for hours and hours. Haymitch pretty much learned quickly to shut up and just let her do whatever was needed. She complained her breasts hurt too much for him to touch them during sex, she was peeing constantly, and she alternated between feeling like she was freezing and burning. One minute she would reach for a sweater, the next she’d threaten to strip down to her bra. So Haymitch fetched Perulla Mellark, the baker’s wife, because as a born Banner, she’d trained as an apothecary. Until one of her kids was old enough to take over the business, she was the best Twelve had.

Perulla confirmed what both of them had vaguely suspected. If not for the Games and the Capitol, he’d have wanted children with Johanna so damn much. Even despite the Games, he did, but he knew she was as terrified as him. At least the moments of joy grew more and more, particularly given how delighted their parents were at the prospect of a grandchild to adore. His ma in particular beamed in a way she hadn’t in years, ever since Fog left and the pall of loneliness descended on her again. 

There was no point discussing ending it. The Capitol wouldn’t have let them get an abortion, what herbs Perulla had were as likely to kill Johanna as the baby, and while they were scared shitless, they both wanted the baby desperately. It was accepting the risks and doing the best they could, or putting aside the chance for children, because the world they lived in wasn’t going to change. So they started to talk about names, about decorating a nursery, and he tried to forget his fear and to reassure her in hers. They would just keep it from the Capitol as much as they could. Given that nobody paid attention to a place like Twelve between Reaping Days, they wouldn’t even know she was pregnant. They could have called Capitol doctors and the like to help Johanna through the pregnancy, but their opinion on that was a mutual, “Like hell.” Unless Perulla said it was too risky for her to care for Johanna, and that wasn’t the case, they didn’t want the Capitol knowing, didn’t want them interfering. 

The baby would probably be born in April or May, so by the time July rolled around for the next reaping, the first the world would know about this child was that it was already born. He wasn’t handing the pregnancy over to the Capitol so they could speculate and splash pictures of ultrasounds all over the news and take bets on the gender and run some damn contest for the name. They’d seen with the wedding just how much the Capitol would forcibly take from them. That wasn’t going to happen here. 

A month later, they got a phone call. After chatting with whoever was on the other end, Johanna hung up the phone and gave him a cynical smile. “Drug company wants us to know we may have gotten a few faulty doses of contraceptive from a bad batch.”

“Ah, really now?” He’d noticed she hadn’t told them that she was pregnant. 

“Snow?” she asked him softly. He thought about it. It could be an honest mistake by the drug company, or it could have been the president finally making them act upon that reference he’d made to seeing whether the public wanted a kid from them or not. They were popular enough still, and people had asked for several years if they were planning on having kids. Maybe Snow had gotten tired of their evasive answers.

He shrugged. “We’ll never know, will we?” But he was fairly sure Snow’s hand was in this somewhere, and the panic of that probably showed for someone like her who knew him well enough to read it.

 _What do you want, my firstborn?_ she’d shot at Snow, angry to the point of flippancy. Trying to not feel violated once again at the president forcing them to be his breeders and just doing it to them, and at Snow thinking of this child as another bit of entertainment and goodwill for the Capitol crowd, he had the sinking feeling that was exactly the price Snow had extracted from them. The man had said their debt would come due, and he’d been suspiciously quiet towards them over the last few years.

Looking over at Johanna, he saw the look of determination on her face as she pressed her hands to the gentle swell that had finally appeared recently. He knew without asking that they were of one mind on this too. _We’re keeping as much of you away from those bastards as we can,_ he swore to the tiny life growing within her. _Me and your ma both. I promise._

~~~~~~~~~~

Johanna was glad as anything when there was no move by the Capitol to make them bring two-month-old Tam along for the Games. She could easily have seen them laying their claim on “Tamarack Abernathy, the little wonder”, the child of the Games’ most epic romance, right from the start. There had been a few comments that he ought to come with, saying that the Games were in his blood. She’d shuddered at that, looking over at her sleeping son in his crib, feeling like she was already losing him. She couldn’t bear to think ahead yet to the long stretch of years between twelve and eighteen.

She only hoped, futile as it seemed, that they considered Tam, as the first known two-victor child, and a child of a district never known for its victories, as something far too precious to risk his life in the arena. No legacy tribute had ever come out of the arena alive. She and Haymitch had killed two of them as their final fights in the Quell, after all. She could still remember watching Sapphire die some nights in her dreams, shocked and horrified at the frenzy of her own fear and rage.

Tam would only be ten when the next Quell came and that made her breathe a little sigh of relief. She would have considered that the most dangerous year of all. But she knew she wouldn’t rest easy until he was eighteen and safe—that was parenthood in the districts. In that, she was no different from any other woman who’d given birth to a child and desperately wanted to see them live.

So Tam stayed with his grandparents, safe in Twelve, although they had to put up with a few photographs of him the morning of the reaping. Then she and Haymitch escorted seventeen-year-old Daisy McPhee and thirteen-year-old Ronnal Appleton to the Capitol, a matched pair of Seam-dark dead kids walking.

She and Haymitch watched the reaping recaps with the tributes, calmly offering some assessments. As ever, the two kids watched listlessly, knowing it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. She was terrified that they’d call Bern’s daughter Mina this year in Seven, because she was twelve now and up for the reaping. That didn’t happen and thus the nightmare that had been nagging her ever since last Games was averted. Willomina Mason was safe for another year and she was unspeakably grateful for that. She knew Bern and Nyssa must have been terrified—having a child of her own now, she could imagine that helpless fear all too well. 

But when it came to Four, it was like a nightmare she’d never seen coming. Fourteen-year-old Finnick Odair was boyishly lanky in a way that reminded her touchingly of Haymitch on their Victory Tour. But he would grow into that frame already hinting at a good adult height, and already his features promised an almost ethereal male beauty when he grew a bit older. She knew with all the instincts of this being her fifteenth year of Hunger Games mentorship that the sponsors would want to keep him alive to see that promise come to pass. They would want to love him and adore him and fuck him and own him.

She remembered seeing Finnick as a blanket-wrapped bundle in Coral Odair’s arms fourteen and a half years ago, just over a month old. _Tam_ , she thought desperately, heart aching with the need to hold him, suddenly feeling like she couldn’t breathe for imagining herself in fourteen or fifteen years watching her son mount the steps to the reaping stage. 

Haymitch’s hand slid into hers and she knew he was as terrified as her with that sharp, terrible spike of reality driven home like a sliver of ice into both their hearts. As Daisy and Ronnal left for dinner, she wanted to throw something at the television, wanted to start screaming that they couldn’t have him, never ever, she’d sooner die.

“He’s only fourteen,” she said softly. “Why didn’t they…Four has _volunteers_ , for fuck’s sake!”

“They knew the minute that kid was on camera the Capitol would want him,” he said, a harsh rasp to his voice like the bite of a saw into wood telling her that he was trying to keep his own emotions in check. “Mags of all people would know what they want. And she could delay it a year or two, but I bet they’ll keep calling him and calling him every year. She probably gambled that their wanting to keep him alive would be enough, rather than her sacrificing another boy they won’t want because they got denied.” That was how the Capitol operated, it was true. When they were denied, they grew petulant.

“He’s going into the arena,” she whispered, eyes itching with the force and heat of suppressed tears. This just confirmed it for her. They could try to keep him safe and make other people suffer for it and give him up in the end anyway, or they could just stand back and hand their child over as demanded. The Capitol couldn’t love a thing without needing to possess it and make it theirs entirely, like a child with a favorite toy.

Haymitch knew she didn’t mean Finnick. “We’ve got a long time before we need to think about that.”

“Really?” She turned on him, furious, wanting to hit him but restraining herself, and instead throwing a vase to watch it shatter against the wall. The water dripped slowly down the wallpaper in rivulets, making a damp puddle on the maroon floral carpet amidst the crystal shards. “You tell me you won’t think about it every time you look at him until he’s of reaping age!”

He looked at her and she saw the helpless grief and fury in his expression. Thirty-one now and sometimes when she looked in those eyes she couldn’t help but see the kid he’d been, half a lifetime ago, the one who cared too much but tried to not show it. She knew it was a stupid accusation. If anyone cared about other people, it was Haymitch. “I will. You know I will. But there’s not the first fucking thing we can do about it.” He laughed gutturally, fingers clenched into fists. “I go kill the president, we just get another one like him.” He was right. It would just go on and on and on, all of them squashed beneath the weight of the Capitol’s demands, totally helpless to prevent it.

Trying to force her temper and her fear to calm down, she said finally, “Daisy and Ronnal. Strategy? We may have some more people willing to talk to us this year.” Though the questions and requests for pictures of Tam from the sponsors would make her feel disgusting, like she was whoring out her own child in the interest of saving someone else’s. But she could hardly refuse their interest politely.

“Totally fucked,” he said bluntly. “Even more so than usual. The sponsors have their golden boy for this year, Hanna. So Twelve isn’t getting anything worthwhile.” He was right. The sponsors would love Finnick Odair and rush to give him gifts, to the cost of every other child in that arena they rejected as beneath their notice.

The train ride was glum after that, because doomed children filled her mind. She couldn’t bear it. Maybe it had been Snow that forced their hand in having a child, but she loved Tam now with an unbearable depth of feeling. She knew without question she’d kill for him or die for him, if only it would do any damn good. 

Once they arrived and settled in at the Training Center and the pre-Games started, she didn’t say anything to Finnick, of course. It was always considered bad form for a mentor to directly address another district’s tribute, because in the past it had been used as a psychological intimidation tactic, or to screw the plans of that tribute’s mentor. Alliances were discussed solely mentor-to-mentor, though that was pointless as she knew she had nothing to offer Carrick to get him to team Finnick up with Daisy. Though she caught up with Mags at Snow’s usual Victor Social and couldn’t resist asking about the boy. “Do you know the boy at all?” she asked the older woman, handing her a glass of punch. 

She noticed Haymitch had a glass of it too, and given that she could feel the burn of liquor in it, she tried to not worry about that. He’d done his best to turn to her rather than the whiskey and she’d done her best to turn to him rather than lashing out. It was still a work in progress, but they were doing much better. Besides, it wasn’t like Snow’s refreshments table had any non-alcoholic option, and the smell of those fucking roses was making her sick as usual and even she felt like she needed a drink because of it.

Mags shook her head, accepting the glass from Johanna’s hand. Even at seventy-three, she was still going strong—no matter how many female victors Four produced, Johanna had the feeling that Mags Robichaux would be the enduring image to Panem for a long time to come. “The family’s from Crooked Bayou to the east. I never met him in my life until he walked onto that stage. But I knew the moment I saw him…”

“That you couldn’t swap him out, yeah.” Mags gave her a look that might have been approval, as if to say that Johanna understanding her tactic showed good thinking as a mentor. “Haymitch and I met his family on our Tour.” She shook her head tiredly, draining the rest of her glass and wanting to go chug about half the bowl, despite Snow floating rose petals in the punch. “The mom’s brother died in the Quell. He was the kid we gave a mercy kill.”

“Oh, damn,” Mags said succinctly, with a sigh and a shake of her head. “I had almost forgotten that boy.” She supposed that in fifty-six years of mentorship, the dead tributes tended to blur together for Mags, and her focus had to be on the living, and the future potential successes. But all Johanna had was the dead, so she could never forget Bream Shaunessay, nor could Haymitch. The two of them didn’t look alike, but the bronze hair and green eyes, and the knowledge of the uncle-nephew relationship, meant she couldn’t look at Finnick Odair without memories of Bream.

Haymitch came over then, with Cashmere close behind him. “Mags, I was wondering if we could chat?” Cashmere asked. Her tribute, whose name Johanna hadn’t bothered to learn, looked like a strong contender. She probably wanted to talk an alliance, readily recognizing that Finnick was the star to hitch to for any tribute. Johanna thought privately that she’d liked Chantilly Forbes—Dumas now, she’d married her fellow One victor Niello after Haymitch and Johanna seemed to break the ice for a two-victor relationship—a lot more than Cashmere Donovan, because Chantilly had a wicked tongue behind her sweet façade. And frankly Cashmere came across as a stuck-up bitch that didn’t have time for anyone but her brother. She wondered if Chantilly and Niello, who were still childless after a few years of marriage, looked at her and Haymitch and Tam and steeled their resolve about that all the more.

“Oh, don’t mind us hopeless cases, Cash,” Haymitch said sarcastically, taking Johanna’s arm. “We’ll just be sittin’ on a bench somewhere.”

“I miss Chantilly,” Johanna muttered to him as they approached the punch bowl.

“You and me both,” he said, “but you know how it is with One.” Once a victor started to get past thirty and the glamorous youthful sexpot image began to fade, One encouraged its victors to stay off-camera since they were no longer worthy of the Capitol’s short attention span and standards of beauty.

The 65th Hunger Games took place in a muggy tropical swamp. That openly favored Four and Eleven this year, Johanna thought. Tributes slogged through water anywhere from ankle to chest deep, and the only solid ground was near the Cornucopia. The Careers quickly held that, and a few others managed to scamper up the tall, twisting trees hung with vines in thick curtains. Some of the vines broke easily but had a caustic sap, and others were impossible to break with anything but a machete. Giant iridescent blue mosquitoes the size of a hand drank blood with impunity, and alligator mutts lurked beneath the surface of the water. Poisonous snakes hung in the trees and swam in the swamp, like brightly-colored ribbons.

After five days, the Careers had their routine of patrolling out from their island down pat. She had the feeling the rest of them were sticking close to Finnick to benefit from his frequent sponsor gifts. The few other tributes left alive were miserable with their feet starting to rot from never drying up. Ronnal died from being bled by the mosquitoes. It would be a closed casket, because Haymitch told her that his body was pale and shrunken, as if all the moisture was sucked out of him. Daisy had proved a little resourceful, drowning the Six boy in a struggle in the water. She was now hiding up a tree among the shelter of the vines for a few hours each afternoon to dry her feet, and sleeping up there as well, because apparently she’d figured from the lack of cannons that the Careers wouldn’t risk a hunt at night. After falling in the mud on the first day, she’d accidentally discovered that kept the mosquitoes away, and she’d renewed it every day since. She didn’t look pretty, but she was still alive. On the sixth day, she was one of the final eight, so a few sponsors threw a little money to Johanna and Haymitch.

On the sixth day, Finnick Odair also received what must have been the priciest sponsor gift ever sent into the arena—a golden trident, borne in by a large parachute to handle the weight. Carrick laughed mockingly as Johanna met him at the refreshments table a few minutes later, needing to get away from the console for a minute because she knew this was the start of the endgame. The odds had just changed overwhelmingly in favor of Finnick with that gesture. All that was left was for it to unfold. “They probably figure the boy’s been wielding a trident since he could walk,” Carrick said, biting into a corn muffin after slathering a pat of butter on it. “Fishing is more like handling a scaling knife and learning to push the buttons of a winch.”

“Capitol,” Johanna said with a wry smile, for the moment letting both of them forget that Finnick would very likely go kill Daisy with that beautiful but deadly weapon.

“Capitol,” Carrick agreed.

The Career pack split apart that day as Finnick apparently realized he would be a target now, taking down the One girl before vanishing into the swamp. Five days later he sat in the crook of one of the liana trees, eating a protein bar and carefully plaiting vines into another net to replace the first one he’d made which had finally dried out and become stiff. Improbably enough, Daisy was the only other tribute left, but everyone knew it was just a matter of time before the game of hide-and-seek ended.

The snake slithered out from between the vines in the work pile, a tiny scarlet-and-gold band barely longer than a hand and only about as thick as Finnick’s little finger.

She, Haymitch, Carrick, Mags, and the rest of Panem watched Finnick Odair in agony for the next five hours as his finger, his hand, and then his arm swelled and blackened grotesquely. Eventually he tumbled from the tree and lay there in the swamp. 

Finally, Daisy found him and the cameras didn’t capture what was said as she crouched over the dying, convulsing Four boy, but then she took a knife from his backpack. Johanna looked over at Haymitch rather than at Daisy and Finnick on the screen, and he looked right back at her. Fifteen years ago with Bream might as well have been yesterday for both of them. At least she had come out of it with Haymitch—Daisy would be alone with this memory of a dying boy who very likely had pleaded with her to end his suffering.

The cannon sounded, immediately followed by the victory trumpet, and Daisy didn’t even seem to hear the announcement from Claudius as she stayed crouched in the water, throwing away the knife as far from herself as possible. Then she took up Finnick’s trident and Johanna watched to see what she would do, as clueless as the rest of the nation. She didn’t know the mind of this girl—was she going to claim it as some kind of a trophy? Instead, Daisy smoothed the wet hair off Finnick’s forehead, closed his wide-staring eyes, and laid the trident across his chest, folding his arms over it to secure it. He looked so young in death, even younger than fourteen.

Only then did the half-starved, mud-smeared victor of the 65th Hunger Games get to her feet and step back, never turning her back on Finnick as if in a few final moments of respect.

~~~~~~~~~~

Daisy was so young that of course she didn’t remember Bream and the Quell, but the Capitol made short work of figuring out that two generations had died at the hands of Twelve victors granting them a release from pain. “It seems history really does repeat itself sometimes, Claudius,” Caesar said, as the split screen of Haymitch, Johanna, and Bream on one side, and Daisy and Finnick on the other, replayed the moment in vivid color. As if he’d ever forgotten it, and he was pretty sure Daisy never would.

On the train ride back, she sat silently in the dining car watching out the window. He knew from experience it was far too fast to see anything, but it was a good place for silence because there was no television nearby.

Keeping a little distance, knowing how startling it was to be crowded, he said, “If it’s any consolation, I doubt you’ll have to mentor.” They liked him and Johanna as a team far too much to give that up, even for the novelty of a new Twelve victor. She’d be sold off, of course, but with any luck she’d be as much of a one-year wonder as a whore as Gretel was for Seven, and unlike Gretel, she would be able to stay home every year.

“I can’t get them out of my head,” she said, head touched to the glass. “Finnick. He looked so young...like my little brother. And that other boy, the one I drowned, his name was Atchison.” She shuddered and he had the feeling she was still feeling him twitching and jerking as he died.

“You never will.” His ghosts were with him still so he figured he might as well be honest. “It’ll get less with time. But if they stay with you, if their deaths mattered…it means you didn’t lose everything in there.” She was human enough for horror and guilt, even if she was now tainted by death.

“Is he with you still? Bream?”

Haymitch nodded. “With both Johanna and me,” he answered her quietly. He reached out and squeezed her shoulder lightly in reassurance that he was here and he understood what it was like to try to live with ugly deeds after the arena. “Go get some rest, Daisy. That’s the best thing. I can get you a pill to knock you out if you need it—no dreams.” She looked up at him with tired, aged grey eyes and nodded.

Back in Twelve, after Daisy returned to cheers and excitement and they handed over Ronnal’s coffin, they went home. He wondered which house Daisy would claim as her own, but only for a moment, because then he was inside their house. Scooping up Tam from his crib, holding him close and seeing that he’d changed even in the few weeks Haymitch had been away, he felt like it was unbearable. Looking at his son, so young yet, he felt like he was already losing Tam, as if the boy had never even been his to begin. _Maybe he wasn’t. He wasn’t our plan, was he?_ After all, it had been the Capitol that meddled to cause his conception. But it was Haymitch and Johanna that conceived him. And the two of them spent those agonizing fearful hours of Johanna in labor to bring him into the world, and it was the two of them that would raise him and love him until the Capitol finally came to snatch him away. He was far more afraid than he’d ever been in the arena or in a Capitol bedroom.

The months turned, Parcel Days brought a small ray of light to Twelve, and everyone began to wonder if optimistically if maybe he and Johanna could do it again. Never mind Daisy had won mostly by luck and patience and dogged endurance. People had a little hope and he wasn’t going to kill it. Tam grew bigger and livelier, and Haymitch began to imagine the awful vision of him as a teenager in the arena, dying in agony.

December brought the Victory Tour, and they filled Daisy’s mind with as much advice as possible. She took the news about the whoring almost too well. Though the fact she admitted with some shame that she’d been going to Peacekeepers’ Row for three years might have had something to do with it. Her pa was half-dead from blacklung, her ma had died four years ago, wrung out from the birth of a baby that had also died, and Daisy had five living siblings. “Head Cray bought me first,” she told them, without tears. He had the feeling her childish tears had long since been burned away. “I looked a bit older than fourteen. I told him I was sixteen already and he paid me extra because I was a virgin. I didn’t even know how much to ask and he said I was undercharging. That kept us in food through that next January.”

“You’ll never be hungry again,” Johanna told her firmly, but Haymitch could see the fury in her eyes at Cray and the whole filthy system that brought them to a place where this girl had endured enough that she just shrugged at the idea of Capitol people buying her body.

A faint smile appeared on Daisy’s lips. “Yeah. At least we have that now.” She was almost pretty, Haymitch thought, now that she’d been eating well and her figure turned lush and curvy, her hair lustrous, her olive skin ruddy with health. Maybe she’d last longer than a year, but maybe she had the strength to endure it.

“In Four,” Johanna told her, “I would ask to talk to Finnick’s family.” It was a good plan. After distinguishing themselves with it on their own Tour, and with all the parallels people were drawing, it would play better for Daisy to do the same. “Besides, I think it’ll do you some good,” she added bluntly.

Coral Odair’s face showed none of the pain of having lost a brother and a son to the arena. Almost forty now, she stood in the square outside Victors’ Bayou straight and proud. Haymitch caught her eye for a minute and gave a nod of acknowledgment, or apology, he wasn’t sure which. Just for a moment her brave face flickered and he saw the awful abyss of grief beneath. 

Whatever Daisy said to Coral, neither he nor Johanna were made privy to it, and as it was a standard Tour with just the usual length stops, they didn’t get to talk to her. But her image was in his mind as the train rolled northwest towards Three. He’d seen too many parents now having to bury their children, and he felt more and more like he was staring into his own future. He thought about Sapphire and Severus’ families, of victors watching their own children die in the hell they’d once endured themselves. It still happened now and again. Two years ago, Scipio of Two, one of the loaned mentors for Twelve in the Quell, had watched his youngest daughter Victoria get cut down by Cashmere. He’d been back home in Two rather than Mentor Central so Haymitch hadn’t seen him when it happened, but he knew even if Scipio had tried to keep a stoic face, he was screaming inside. 

Twenty-three families every single year, forty-six the year of the Second Quell; he did the math. That meant 1518 dead children so far, and hundreds and hundreds of bereaved families. How many of them had been struck twice like Coral Shaunessay Odair, three times, or even more by the Games? He didn’t know, and the thought of it was almost too awful to bear.

“It’s never going to stop,” he told Johanna that night, curled up with her in bed. 

“No.” Neither of them bothered to pretend otherwise. “I keep thinking…” Her voice cracked a bit. “He’s either going to die in there or he’s going to survive and be a killer and a whore. I want him to live, you know that, but the cost of it…”

“Yeah.” He knew the price of survival all too well, and he didn’t want to see that fall upon their son. 

“And if we have grandkids…even after we’re dead, there’ll be the 100th Games. The 200th.”

He thought about Tam, probably asleep in his crib now guarded by his grandparents, still innocent and unspoiled. He thought about how Coral Odair and Scipio Hambly and Silk Lafitte and Septus Hollbrook and Garry Taylor and Lily Gordon and Rab Donner and so many parents out there had once rocked their newborns to sleep, praying like anything that they would grow up to escape the Games. So many dashed dreams, and for what? The tantrums of the Capitol, like a short-tempered and spoiled child always demanding more, more, more, _now_ because what it had was boring and not good enough. “They’ll keep taking so long as we let them. So dammit, we make them stop.”

She froze in his grasp. “Are you…”

“I’m tired of just handing it all over with a smile.” He gripped her tighter, feeling his heart race with adrenaline and fear. “He’s my son. They’re all somebody’s kids. What’s the worst they can do, wipe us all out? Is that _better_ than this?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted finally. “But I’d rather go down fighting.” 

“I don’t know what’ll happen,” he told her. Maybe this would end with them at the end of a rope outside Snow’s mansion. Torture, grief, loss, it was all a possibility. “But…at least I’ve had you. I couldn’t have made it this far alone.” He would have been lost years ago.

“Me either,” she whispered, and her hand brushed his face, and he heard the soft rustling sounds of her pulling off her t-shirt. Grateful that she was with him in this, that as ever they would stand together, he reached for her. She clutched at him desperately as if she was already afraid of losing him, and no matter how hard or fast they moved it was never enough. Even as he was deep inside her, and she had her arms and legs wrapped around him and thus pulling him as close to her as he could possibly be, he knew that he was terrified of losing her. But his mind was made up. It was intolerable and they had no option but to continue to take it until all hope of fighting back was long gone, or they threw it all into one last ditch effort. He would see them all free or die trying because this was no world worth saving. For the next few days, on the journey between Three, Two, One, and the Capitol, trying to act normal when they had treason brewing in their hearts wasn’t easy, but they had plenty of practice at acting.

Plutarch Heavensbee wasn’t hard to find, and to corner for a few minutes away from the party at Snow’s mansion. Haymitch noticed with disgust all the people drooling over Daisy already, knowing that it would never change. All the careful murmurs Plutarch had offered to them over the years on those pay-to-view sets and in Mentor Central, the ones Haymitch had tried to ignore, came back to him now.

“You said,” he told Plutarch, holding Johanna’s hand tightly as they committed themselves to win or die, just like in the Games, “that if we ever wanted it to be different, we should come to you. That we would be the ones to prove that the districts could pull together.” He thought of Johanna and that clearing in the arena, looking at another dead Career and a weak, exhausted girl in Seven green. He thought about sleeping in the same bed with her and trusting and loving her. He thought about bringing her home to Twelve as his wife and seeing how the unbearable loneliness had finally ended. He thought about how she threw herself into saving Twelve’s hopeless tributes every single year with the sheer ferocity with which she pursued everything.

He thought about their little boy, with Johanna’s golden skin and his silky wisps of hair were wavy like hers, while he had Haymitch’s grey eyes and black hair—the living symbol of people of two districts brought together, two people who would rather love each other than kill each other or be driven apart. Their relationship and the birth of Tam were something unprecedented. No wonder Snow kept such careful tabs on them and tried to turn those milestones into mere Capitol entertainment, emphasizing the sheer novelty and glossy tabloid aspects of it. Snow had managed the whole thing carefully by making it happen on his schedule and under his control.

But now Haymitch saw the situation truly as the dangerous, subversive, wonderful thing that it was. He had refused to kill a girl from another district like almost anyone else would have, made her his ally, came to love her, wouldn’t apologize for it or stick to “his own kind”. She had answered him every step of the way in kind. _The districts are only as strong as we can be together,_ he thought. Who better to show them the way than the two of them? 

Snow had underestimated them. He originally called for two Quell victors, he arranged their marriage, and he probably set up the pregnancy. Apparently he thought that so long as the idea came from him, it was his and couldn’t be twisted away and used to other purposes. He’d made them look like his pets, simply spoiled privileged exceptions to the rules. Haymitch realized that Snow had wanted ordinary district people to resent them, to identify them as Capitol, not be inspired by them. 

He held few illusions. They might well lose if they fought back. Even before open war began, it would probably be an uphill battle to convince people that they weren’t on Snow’s side, and that they hadn’t forgotten who they were and what the reality of the districts was like. But truth could be a powerful weapon, couldn’t it? Snow feared it so much he kept everything under a pall of utter secrecy and threatened people in order to keep those secrets safe. That meant the man actually had something to lose. One good well-aimed shot of honesty could bring the whole thing tumbling down like a house of cards and show the people of Panem just what their president was really like. He smiled broadly at the thought, feeling the power of it after so much instinctive submission. He himself was from the blood of two districts, Two and Twelve, from a man and a woman that people would think shouldn't have been together, because for them it was wrong to see the goodness and humanity in someone not of "our kind". But Magnolia Abernathy and Phineas Fog had come together, learned to love each other, and they'd had him in the bargain, as heir to that hidden mingled heritage. That would rattle peoples' cages too and challenge their perceptions even more if one of their victors revealed not only did he have a wife from another district, his own blood wasn't exactly pure either.

“So…we want to change things,” Johanna said with determination. “If we’re the right symbols, let’s go start a fucking revolution.”

Plutarch grinned like a kid at New Year’s, blue eyes suddenly bright. “I wondered if you’d ever come to me. Let’s take a walk. It’ll look like you’re trying to gain influence with a Gamemaker. But you’ll let me tell you two about District Thirteen and the rebellion.”


End file.
